EAGLES OF DEATH METAL "Death by Sexy . . ." Rekords Rekords/Downtown RYE COALITION "Curses" Gern Blandsten
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EAGLES OF DEATH METAL"Death by Sexy . . ."Rekords Rekords/DowntownRYE COALITION"Curses"Gern Blandsten
HARD ROCK is doing fine, but it might be a shade feebler without Dave Grohl.
When not fronting Foo Fighters, the D.C.-bred musician seems to be everywhere in the head-banging universe, serving as producer, impresario and fill-in drummer. He played the latter role with Queens of the Stone Age, whose Josh Homme is now touring with his other band, Eagles of Death Metal. Grohl also produced the new album by Rye Coalition, an unrepentantly '70s-style rock band. Both groups are playing this weekend at the Black Cat, a club Grohl helped to underwrite.
Hardly a death metal outfit, Eagles open their second album, "Death by Sexy . . .," with a ersatz rockabilly number, "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)." The band's brain trust -- producer-drummer Homme and ex-journalist and frontman Jesse Hughes -- writes simple-riffed songlets about simple subjects (lust, mostly). Their musical models include Elvis, Robert Johnson, T. Rex, the Stooges and some subterranean punkers; Hughes sounds a lot like Washington's Ian Svenonius, currently of Weird War, on such playful numbers as "The Ballad of Queen Bee and Baby Duck" (inspired by Homme's relationship with the Distillers' Brody Dalle). Song for song, "Death by Sexy . . ." is a little weaker than 2004's "Peace Love Death Metal." For sheer wiseacre attitude, however, this album is as deathless as its predecessor.
Although it was named in honor of four years of unconsummated negotiations with major labels, Rye Coalition's "Curses" isn't all about the travails of rock non-stardom. Oh, singer Ralph Cuseglio does roar somewhat defensively in "Secret Heat" that "it doesn't matter if you go gold." But that's just one of the myriad frustrations the New Jersey-bred quintet addresses, and most of them are no more rarefied than cheating girlfriends or the chaos of a blackout-darkened New York. The music on this album (which comes with a companion DVD) is not especially inventive, but it is consistently vigorous and impressively heedless. Rye Coalition is a band that can deliver such mottoes as "party time, it's excellent" as if they hadn't become punch lines years ago.
-- Mark Jenkins
Appearing Saturday at the Black Cat.
