From the first notes of the proto-"Wipe Out" opening instrumental "We Are Thee Headcoatees," the fifth album from
Thee Headcoatees finds the female garage rock titans in typically raw and rambunctious form.
Bozstik Haze celebrates the joys and perils of booze and tobacco ("Name Your Poison"), offers real-life tales of British dentistry ("Baby-Teeth Marge"), documents some sort of poorly defined psychedelic experience (the title tune), and finds the gals struggling with a variety of romantic dilemmas ("I Need Loving," "Speak to Me," "You Ruined My Night's Rest," and more), all accompanied by the roar of cheap guitars and the clatter of energetically swatted drums. With
Holly Golightly in the lineup, the vocals offer a bit more polish and nuance than you might expect, but she and her bandmates know when to whisper and when to wail, and even though this album goes for a moody feel on some tracks, most of the time they crank up the amps and let the rock & roll carry the day, not a bad approach to take when your producer is
Billy Childish.
Childish also wrote the songs for this disc (except for a frantic cover of "I Want Candy"), and his mastery of the garage idiom remains impressive, while
Thee Headcoatees show they know how to make the most of the material. At a bit under 28 minutes,
Bozstik Haze might be a bit more concise than some consumers would like, but there's no fat and no filler in this package, and it packs a lot of high-quality noise into a small space. ~ Mark Deming