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It finally happened--Prisonshake has completed their long-threatened double-album, Dirty Moons. An underground rock Chinese Democracy, maybe, but with less drama and way less money. Guitarist Robert Griffin founded the Scat label in 1989 for Prisonshake, and to some extent it has continued to exist in hopes of releasing this album. These recordings, all but one done entirely in the analog domain between 1995 to 2007, encompass both realism and psychedelia, sometimes via tape manipulation and found sound. Performances range from the completely live (even vocals) to near Bob Ezrin-levels of production, but all have an everybody-in-the-room recording at their core. Right off the bat, one can't help but notice the guitars. This is a shameless rock 'n' roll album, where guitar solos, passion, swing, and fingertips are celebrated. Prisonshake are native speakers of rock language and have done it long enough to have their own dialect, both in terms of the individuals' playing voices and in terms of songwriting and arrangements. The group is also blessed with the sublime talents of principal vocalist and lyricist Doug Enkler, who has a rare knack for putting words to ambiguous human moments (when he isn't being a smartass), and who can hit emotional chords without being confessional or lovesick. But make no mistake, Dirty Moons aims to stimulate all chakras with its orgy of ripping guitars, beautiful losers, and inbred songs, grown in the dark--like mold when no one was watching. Conflict is always present in the songs, sometimes even between them; this is heard in the lyrics, between countermelodies, sections of songs, instruments, and beyond, forming the central organization of the album. Prisonshake's somewhat ecumenical aesthetic, which celebrates some of the music punk rock and its poorly behaved descendents sought to destroy, ungenrefies the songs. This, along with the long gestation period, provides an especially large world of rock, where surprise can be had all the way up to the final minutes of the album. |
