Lars Finberg - Tinnitus Tonight LP

>> Tinnitus Tonight is the latest & sneakiest full-measure serving from LARS FINBERG, world-class bon vivant and prolific Panic Rock artiste.  Why so sneaky?  Here’s the dirt:  Finberg developed a nerve rash leading up his 2017 tootle, the TY SEGALL-assisted Moonlight Over Bakersfield.   Rather than blindly leap from the comfy zone, he tip-toed in secret to a friendly but far-flung (cough*Sacramento*cough) studio to capture a reserve of slanted tunes with a proven-effective team of buds.  Those comrades – the glorious LAUREN MARIE MIKUS on keys, frequent collaborator & forever-gent KAANAN TUPPER on drums and, at the controls and elsewhere, the indestructible CHRIS WOODHOUSE – all fostered a supportive framework that first allowed Finberg to “think” beyond THE INTELLIGENCE, gearing him up for a life in the spotlight (or moonlight, as it were).  So yes indeed:  what appears to be an adventurous follow-up also doubles as a prequel.  Keep accurate score or you’re dusted.

The core of Tinnitus Tonight centers on an assemblage of Finberg’s most golden riffs – trash-coustic but driftwood-smooth, naughty and infinite, all of ‘em bangers and/or buggers.  Tunes sprout and move matador-like until an inevitable goring.  The past-it grunt that kicks off “Burger Queen” prompts a mimed chef’s kiss.  “My Prison” and “The Doors” are quintessential, truly distilled Finberg moments, compounding his trademark acerbic, out-for-blood wit with these absurdly cool, whip-crack guitars. The massively impressive “Public Admirer” is unequivocally the loudest, most damaged blurt from this doggie in at least a decade.  In total, Tinnitus Tonight is a wonderful and welcome reminder that our guy is a very real rouser and a vital, unique purveyor of artful aggression, playful and powerful. 

Finberg beams really fuckin’ brightly under his own name, perhaps more so than with any group orchestration he happens to be braising with.  Do these higher personal stakes call for a dastardlier delivery?  Maybe this permeating 2020 End Times feeling prohibits the normal corralling of the subconscious mind?  Whatever the answers are, you will find them here.

- Mitch Cardwell

The Intelligence - Un-Psychedelic in Peavey City LP

>> Still panting from their installment in CASTLE FACE’s Live In San Francisco series (where they ran a greatest hits clinic for basement sweat-rats) and from mega-mind LARS FINBERG’s outside solo oddballer, Moonlight Over Bakersfield, THE INTELLIGENCE return in nouveau mode with Un-Psychedelic In Peavey City, their 10th studio album-amalgam released on their own imprint “Vapid Moonlighting Inc”.  Load up on electrolytes, all ye who enter here…

 The customary tin/aluminum milestone won’t fit this true band of steel:  the current Intelligence iteration is most forceful and dynamic of any line-up in the project’s history.  Although each performer has been smeared across myriad recordings and tours for years, the now-time assemblage of DREW CHURCH (bass), DAVE HERNANDEZ (guitar) and KAANAN TUPPER (drums) currently positions The Intelligence as a world-class unit, with members playing in partnership with conductor Finberg rather than at his sometimes-service.  Lars is giving the back-rubs now, not getting ‘em --- a delightful & cruel twist.

 There’s no aspect of Un-Psychedelic In Peavey City that tilts toward phoned-in safe plays, no easy feat for a 10-albums-deep unit.  For this collection, the band cast off the comforts of their traditional cosmopolitan haunts (Sacramento, Costa Mesa, etc.) in favor Grass Valley’s Louder Studios, a wilderness recording burg (OK OK, with a pool, yes) helmed by TIM GREEN, a twiddler maestro who has assisted BIKINI KILL, MELVINS, COMETS ON FIRE, WAND and countless others in sterling fashion.  The resultant recordings are the most expansive Intelligence material imaginable --- perhaps Un-Psychedelic, but certainly free, playfully abstract and awesomely stretched out. 

In both arrangement and performance, The Intelligence sound more substantial than ever, rhythmically deeper, largely trading their punky bread-and-butter whip-cracks for something furrier and more adventurous.  “Auteur Detour” (a confirmed studio after-thought deemed by the band as a “No-Wave Santana” exercise!) prompts head-smacking in terms of the sounds being chased --- you’ll wonder how they managed to catch ‘em and why it works so wonderfully.  The familiarity of “Mute Me” --- snake-surf guitars exploding and retreating, with Finberg gnashing against perceptions of his own oeuvre --- is uncloaked and infinitely more severe take than keen followers could be prepared for.  “Immolationin’” turns all manner of earthly malaise into sea-breeze soul-flow, closing the album somewhere between hope and end-times resignation. 

A tune for our times if there ever was one.  Un-Psychedelic perfectly captures a new Intelligence:  nearly re-born, entirely invigorated, free from wet heaving, ruling Peavey City. 

- Mitch Cardwell