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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The Murder City Devils were among the last torchbearers of Northwest garage rock in the 1990s. Formed in Seattle by singer Spencer Moody, organist Derek Fudesco, and guitarists Nate Manny and Dann Gallucci, they played a wild, driving, and not very melodic sound. The vocals were swaggering, shouted, and barely modulated. The guitars were thin, often left to slur in the background. The organ, on the other hand, drove the vocals forward as the real protagonist. The result was a vulgar, abrasive rock and roll in the great Midwest tradition (Laughing Hyenas, Killdozer, Die Kreuzen).
They first formed under the name Hookers, whose material would later be collected on The Hookers (Cold Crush, 2003).
The EP Murder City Devils (Empty), the single Three Natural Sites (Hopscotch), and the album Murder City Devils (Die Young Stay Pretty, 1997)featuring definitive versions of two of their warhorses, Dance Hall Music (already on the EP) and Broken Glass, as well as rowdy brawlers like Flashbulb, Boom Swagger Boom, and Get Off The Floorestablished the MCD as one of the most compelling live acts. Inspired by the Dead Boys, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls, their concerts were incendiary.
Empty Bottles Broken Hearts (SubPop, 1998) crowned their rise with the street punk-rock belligerently shouted in I Want A Lot Now, with a raw and frantic rave-up like Hey Sailor, and with a couple of tracks where the guitars (consciously or not) revived the martial, sinister tones of B-movie sci-fi soundtracks (Dear Hearts and Johnny Thunders). Half of the album, however, was dominated by Derek Fudescos organ, which first aped the surf-era Farfisas (18 Wheels), then built suspense for Moodys most melodramatic recitations (Ready For More and Stars In Her Eyes), and finally indulged in imitating Ray Manzareks timbre in Cradle To The Grave. Meanwhile, the singing grew ever more agonized and visceral. All in all, the single Dancin Shoes was one of their weakest tracks.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Reformed as a six-piece unit,
the Murder City Devils delivers another little gem of garage-rock,
In Name And Blood (Subpop, 2000). Whether it's the band's growth, or
the new, improved keyboards of Leslie Hardy and their gothic overtones, or
drummer Coady Willis' powerful, fierce, acrobatic drumming, the new album
sounds like a Greek tragedy set to raw and wild rock'n'roll. The mood is
depressed to desperate, kicking off with
Press Gang's desolate shout on baroque organ lines,
picking up speed with
I Drink The Wine's loud, frantic and anthemic rave-up,
venting sorrowful anger in the heroic chorus of Idle Hands,
abating in the tuneful dirge of I'll Come Running (their best ballad
ever),
rising like a Hawkwind gale in Demon Brother,
soaring with suicidal teenage epos in In This Town.
They bridge the gap between Pacific garage-rock (Reivers, Sonics), Detroit's
murder bands (MC5, Seattle) and Midwestern harcore (Laughing Hyenas).
And a lonely poet drunk in a pub after midnight.
While not as compelling as Empty Bottles Broken Hearts, the new
album is another inspiring dose of wild rock and roll for the evil minded.
Sure, we've heard these riffs and these refrains hundreds of times in the
annals of rock music. It's the passion, the heart, the bleeding, that gives
them new meaning.
The overall tone of Murder City Devils' calvary continues to change on the mini-album
Thelema (Subpop, 2001). As the musicians mature, their sound abandons
the rock and roll excesses and gains in emotional depth.
The opening That's What You Get is typical of the new style, that is
relatively slow but nonetheless thundering and ferocious.
Leslie Hardy's keyboards sound spacey and futuristic and, together with
Spencer Moody's terrified shout, define the band's intense melodrama,
running the gamut from epic (Bear Away, perhaps the standout) to
(One Vision of May).
The band's influences are almost inverted:
Voodoo-style tom-toms and rising Devo-ish guitar/organ propel
Midnight Service At The Mutter Museum.
The de-devilization of the Devils is complete with
364 Days, a strings-tinged power-ballad on a Parisian melody.
The John And Spencer Booze Explosion (Tiger Style, 2003) is a
collaboration between Murder City Devils' vocalist Spencer Moody and
764-Hero's Juan Atkins, who take on a bizarre selection of covers.
R.I.P. (Subpop, 2003) was their final live album.
Spencer Moody resurfaced with the EP
Rabbit Ears (2006) devoted to a cacophonous version of his garage-rock,
and then with the abstract dissonant fresco Dead Rhythm (2007),
credited to Triumph Of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death, that also featured
guitarist Dann Gallucci.
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