THE BLACK MOLLYS – ‘One Man’s Treasure Is Another Man’s Trash’ (Trashpit Records)
CD Reviews
Written by Gaz E
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 17:50
It’s 1999 and the massive success of ‘A Place In The Sun’ by Lit has opened the floodgates for the so-called Nu-Breed Of Power Pop to pick the bones of the back catalogues of Cheap Trick and Elvis Costello. Great bands like Marvelous 3 and Tsar are threatening to take the new millennium by storm. Throw in the soon-to-be-legendary Jar Jar Binks and everything looks rosy…..
……fast forward a decade and the majority of bands from that time are mere neon highlights in the record collections of cool kids. Jar Jar, of course, became legendary for all the wrong reasons. The Black Mollys, who I was lucky…ahem…enuff to see live recently, have produced an album rammed with eighteen songs that happily takes me back to that sugar buzzing time a decade ago. There appears to be a huge Lit influence and I hear a lot that reminds me of that second Eve 6 album – y’know the one when they tried to ditch the grunge/alt tag and get all pop rock on our asses.
‘One Man’s Treasure…’ is actually made up of the best bits of the first two albums by the band; ‘The First One’ and ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’. Throw in three previously unreleased tracks – including a tasty cover of former Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch’s 70’s hit ‘Ebony Eyes’ – and you have the perfect jumping on point for the Brit it-crowd. The band, which at any given moment could contain two members from the current line-ups of both Enuff Z Nuff and Bulletboys, is made up of frontman Tory Stoffregen, drummer Randi Scott and bass player Rob Lane, whose four-strings-for-hire have seen him take the stage with Teenage Casket Company, Richard Bacchus and…um….Let Loose. Where will this guy turn up next?
Released on cool little UK indie label Trashpit Records, the album plays out like the finer parts of that nu-breed sound stabbed with an alternative injection – think the first American Hi-Fi album. It follows no trends, just lets all the influences out in the music to see how it all mixes. The answer is supremely positive. Catchy, punchy, and scratched to the bone by a barbed edge, the album opens with ‘Every Other Day’, a great song haunted by ‘Horrorscope’ era Eve 6 but blessed with a wicked sense of humour, that cheekily runs over into ‘Complaining.’ ‘Pretend’, with its jagged riff that could easily sneak its way, Sum 41/New Found Glory style, into a teenage record collection (if those young bastards still bought records!) brings the Lit influence to the party. This continues with ‘Turn You Off’ that sounds like A.Jay Popoff singing a spunkier version of ‘Monkey Wrench.’ There’s a definite alternative bent to songs like ‘Call Me A Drag’ which, a decade ago, would probably have been labelled US college rock. There’s even enuff time for a sneaky tribute/homage to one of the ‘day job’ bands…..
‘Hollywood’, ‘Erica’, ‘Girlfriend’ – I could go on. Eighteen track albums without any bad songs are rarer than leftovers in Jani Lane’s fridge and, therefore, essential. Anyone who claims to be into cool music who doesn’t buy this album is not only an idiot, but also an enemy of music.