Album Review

Police Teeth
Real Size Monster Series
(Blood City)

The four guys in Police Teeth have been playing in bands—this
one as well as Bellingham-based acts Racetrack and USS
Horsewhip—for a while, and it shows in more than just their
musical chops. Where those years of toil really rear their ugly head is
in the Seattle transplants’ bitter, pissed-off lyrics about the local
music scenery and biz.

“Big Hearts, Small Riffs” begins with the thesis “There’s a
breakdown in the discourse between art and entertainment,” and then
proceeds to break it down further—suggesting that DIY is a
privilege best afforded by those whose “parents are footing the bill,”
wondering sarcastically if lighting their gear on fire or adding “a hot
girl in her underwear” on tambourine might increase their cut of the
door. All over, five minutes of actually pretty-big riffs; steady,
swaggering rhythms; and the occasional female background vocal and
trumpet burst. On “Bob Stinson Will Have His Revenge on Ferndale,” the
band—sounding a bit like earlier, angrier Piebald or maybe Braid
when that other guy was singing—lament, “The clubs won’t touch us
without label support/The labels won’t touch us until we’re back from
tour.” On “There’s a Big Heap of Trash at the End of the Rainbow”: “You
should have stayed in college and picked a real job/What makes you
think you’re above punching a clock?”

All of which would just be so much petty, though probably painfully
familiar, bitching if the songs were crap. Fortunately, this record,
while uneven, has some shining moments of adventurous punk-rock racket.
“I Made Out with You Before You Were Cool” buries traces of early Q and
Not U’s ricocheting, crooked rhythms underneath dual singing/screaming
vocals that suffer from the screaming being too low in the mix, so that
it sounds blown-out rather than explosive. “Northern California” is a
bleary-eyed bender cranked awake with heat-wave-shimmering
guitars
and comradely gang vocals. “Who Wants to Fuck a Millionaire” and the
domestic disaster of “Psychedelic Vasectomy” would both sound just fine
alongside Seattle contemporaries Bow + Arrow (although presumably they
would have to have words about the whole DIY thing).

This album might not solve all of Police Teeth’s problems with the
music industry and their place in it, but it could go a good ways in
that direction.