MIC TERROR
BLUEBERRY FIST
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When he named this band, lead singer John Tristan hadn’t yet seen the Urban Dictionary entry defining blueberry fist as a euphemism for beating off with a broken hand; he just plucked the phrase out of the air. I was hoping it was a reference to something, since that’d at least mean these guys weren’t entirely responsible for it—the shitty name is the only real problem I’ve got with their band. They play wild, primal pop rock with unforced exuberance—aside from the bonus track, which is a weirder combo of acoustic guitar and Auto-Tune than anything on the new Bon Iver disc, none of the songs on this EP dip below a brisk midtempo—and their punked-up lo-fi approach belies a sophisticated ear for nuance, though they seem to delight in swamping the subtleties of their own craftsmanship with cheap overdrive. Even with only six songs Blueberry Fist has a lot of high points, and the highest is probably “Sly Stone,” which starts off thundering and epic and ends up (three minutes and several abrupt shifts later) a swaggering tangle of sloppy horns and weirdly arpeggiated guitar parts that split the difference between Nigerian highlife and whatever it is Sam Zurick from Make Believe does, topped off with earnestly yelped song titles and lyrics from There’s a Riot Goin’ On.
THE 1900S
Second Nature EP
(Carrot Top)
