Obits - I Blame You - CD (2009)

Labels: Sub Pop
Review by: Alex Deller

After offering us a taste of things to come with last year’s “One Cross Apiece” 7″ former Pitchfork / Drive Like Jehu / Hot Snakes lynchpin Rick Froberg is back in the saddle with his latest project’s debut full-length. Anyone who picked up that thar single will be neither surprised nor disappointed as things barrel along with the same sort of wiry, strung-together rock n’ roll joie de vivre, packing all sorts of punches that basically tap guitar music’s illustrious history and take in everything from Sun Records twang to classic rock chops and feverish Greg Sage riffing. Needless to say, when it works it really works, the likes of “Two-Headed Coin,” “Pine On” and “Back And Forth” all going some way at least towards filling the gaping punk rock-shaped gap left when Hot Snakes called it a day. There are, however, a couple of kinks yet to be ironed out, with the needless instrumental fluff of the title-track and the Sohrab Habibion-fronted “Run” doing little to prevent you skipping forward to get to the proper good stuff.