Raw Cuts, the debut album from The Clean Crime Scene, is a reminder that not everyone makes music to get rich and famous, that the act of making the music, especially when it involves enlisting old friends and takes you to old haunts, is often as much the point as the finished product. In fact, I would suggest that if you are making a record that doesn’t offer such rich rewards, reconnections and reminiscences, if you are just trying to fast track to being a rock and roll star, you might as well just sing Beatles covers on a TV talent show.
Ironically, John Simek and his sonic posse, not least his wife, Diana, who adds the dreamstate vocals that contrast so brilliantly with the gritty grooves of the songs, do sound like rock stars. Such stars have been lost to time only to be unearthed from an archive of early seventies psych-rock recordings or early post-punk playlists.
‘Backstabbers & Moneygrabbers’ kicks things off nicely; raw riffs link a 60s psychedelic, garage rock vibe with the power of proto-punk and through to late-80s college rock; bass pulses, drums clatter creatively, but it is the vocals, those half-heard, serene and seductive dream-pop drifts that are the perfect balancing act. Opposites that are so wonderfully attractive.
‘Black Ice Blackout’ pushes this beguiling blend even further, sounding in part like Belly at their most scuzzy; ‘Devil May Care’ is genuinely sinister, beyond dark, growling, gritty and great and ‘Turn Down the Bright Lights’ hits the sweet spot between the alternative and the accessible, mean and muscular yet melodic and, in its way (again thanks to the sweetening influence of the boy-girl vocal interchange), mellifluous.
And given their love of the past echoing through their modern musical mindset, it is only right that they are releasing Raw Cuts on vinyl too, with an alternate, special-edition cover and a different track listing. Old school!
You should buy it. Not only because it is the sound of people making music for the love of it, music made with friends, taking their time and enjoying the journey, not just craving the destination, but because it is a fantastic album. If you call yourself an alternative rock fan and don’t have this in your record collection, you are just going through the motions!
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