The Richmond Sluts may hail from San Francisco, but their hearts are far off in New York City, and their heads are stuck in other decades entirely. It would be easy to laud the quartet as the best glam trash band since
the New York Dolls, but that's merely a convenient launch pad from which the Richmond Sluts set off into their eponymous debut album. Since categorization is a necessity in this age of overspecification, punk rock will do nicely, but doesn't begin to encompass just how cleverly the group churns other genres through its blender. The Sluts connect the dots between '60s garage punk and old school '70s style, then toss just a dash of new school into the mix. Variations on this recipe reverberate across the album, and answer a slew of niggling questions along the way. Ever wonder what the Dolls would sound like covered by a psychedelic band? Kept up at night trying to imagine a cross between
the Cramps and
the Velvet Underground? Curious what the result would be if a time warp sent
Richard Hell circa 1978 a decade into the past? And what if Eddie & the Hotrods were really
the Ramones with English accents?
The Richmond Sluts answer all these brain teasers and more you've yet to even imagine, and they do it without an ounce of pretentiousness or braggadocio. In fact, the Sluts lay down their songs with such insouciance that one's tempted to believe they are totally unaware of their own genius. And if this is the level of their debut, what treats await us next? ~ Jo-Ann Greene