Labels: Beach Impediment
Review by: Alex Deller
It’s not often that Beach Impediment get all archaeological on us, but when they do it’s definitely worth paying attention. Case in point: this handsome collection by L’Amour, a punked-up rock n’ roll band who released just a solitary two-song 7″ in their brief lifetime. Beyond those classic cuts (‘Sunglass Party’ and ‘Someday’) are a treasure trove of unreleased, demo and live tracks, plus a chunk of written material digging into the band’s history and the context in which they operated. Musically … and this is assuming you haven’t splashed serious cash on an OG copy of the single or caught their appearance when the Bloodstains series stopped in on Richmond … the band possessed the protean sound of a band who’d been raised on classic rock n’ roll but had their eyebrows scorched by the bands who were taking the form’s sweaty energy and shitty attitude to the next level. Hectic, twelve-bar guitar thrashes are powered by a sneering, strutting toughness that places things in the same rough sonic ballpark as the likes of Radio Birdman, Colored Balls, The New York Dolls and The Modern Lovers. It’s pretty much wall-to-wall gold (particularly the rangy dead-end rant of ‘Even Completed’), working as a great collection of lean, spiky rock songs, a rewarding deep-dive into regional punk rock history or, if you’re feeling flush, a nice companion to the Vanity LP released by the same label.