Product Description
\\GT// –
Beats Misplaced
US Release: October 16, 2015. UK/Euro Release Date: July 31, 2015A power trio given to insistent but agile rhythms and psychedelic interpretations of standard rock muscle, \\GT// self-released two excellent EPs in 2013. Spurred by the enthusiasm of Alabama label and recording studio Communicating Vessels, who signed on to produce and release the band’s debut LP, the trio doubled down to make their best work yet—the thrilling, anthemic, addictive eight-song debut, Beats Misplaced.
It’s a rock ’n’ roll thrill ride, full of pumping beats and plangent guitars, howled vocals and hooks that past. For these eight tunes, the blues commingle with noise rock, and a righteous boogie pulsates beneath shoegaze distortion. Think Japandroids or No Age being born in and embracing the humid and strange American South, and you start to hear \\GT// through the haze.
Indeed, Beats Misplaced feels like an exciting open-road adventure. That’s fitting for Lee, who lives these days in an Alabama motorcycle shop and frequently admits that the two most important things in his world are his music and his wheels. The music reflects that, as though these rock hymns were being blasted from a speaker mounted to a bike, motoring down a backwoods road and paying no mind to the law or its speed limit. “Something’s Wrong with My Mind,” for instance, surges from the start but delivers a hook that just begs you to hang on tight. The annoyed but uplifting “Life Is…” sounds as if it’s being blasted from the back of a biker bar, the band on stage too busy playing and the crowd in front of them to busy shouting the song’s mantra to notice they’ve fried the place’s cheap PA. And during epic closer “Real Good Sex,” where the crisscrossing words blur into a kind of tantric nonsense and the guitars bend into wonderfully lurid shapes, you close your eyes and just go along for the trip, happy to let the volume blow your hair back.
