Corporate And Ugly Rock

Rank and File

Rank and File

Rhino Records

USUALLY A BAND TITLES ITS first album eponymously, not its third, but the newly released Rank and File signifies such radical changes in this L.A. band that it is essentially a new group. Personnel shakeups have brought drummer R. Kahr and lead guitarist Jeff Ross into the group. Ross's guitar pyrotechnics have changed Rank and File's style accordingly, from a country-edged punk flavoring to a corporate-rock, Jefferson Starship-type sound.

The core of the band, though, is still founding members Tony and Chip Kinman. The dialectic opposition between the brothers' individual songwriting and singing styles makes Rank and File unique, if bizarre. Tony Kinman is the more philosophical, introspective songwriter, while Chip has a "let's party" attitude. Tony writes about South Africa. Chip writes about Hollywood. Tony quotes Robert Frost Chip sings, "Oh! That girl, na na na na na na." You get the idea.

Vocally, the contrast between the brothers is just as bizarre. Tony sings sort of like Buckwheat, while Chip sings like Alvin the Chipmunk. Amazingly, the two together sound a lot like the Everly Brothers, which may be why the Everly Brothers themselves decided last year to cover the Kinman brothers' "Amanda Ruth."

These vocal harmonies on Rank and File are also the last remaining trace of the band's former country sound. Unfortunately, the rest of that sound has been swallowed up by Ross's guitar and so-called "Rosstronix" effects. The result is several songs in which Ross vamps on for about half a minute too long, as if the band couldn't decide how or when to end.

The Kinmans' rather dry and often cryptic lyrics don't do much to relieve the tedium, although some of the songs are lively and short enough so that they don't have to. "Unlucky in Love," for example, doesn't say much of anything, but its sonic-boom noise and punk/polka rhythm make it great fun. Otherwise, the new Rank and File's hybrid of nasal vocals and buzzsaw guitars sound like uniform drone. Rank and File may catapult the band to MTV stardom (and Rhino Records out from the novelty and oldies bins in record stores), but such success will come at the expense of the band's more interesting elements.

12 Days to Paris

Huxton Creepers

Bigtime Records

Not everything from Australia is as cute as koala bears or Mel Gibson. With their debut album, 12 Days to Paris, Melbourne's grungy-looking and grungy-sounding Huxton Creepers offer proof, by reviving that wonderful 60s genre of Ugly Rock.

The original purveyors of Ugly Rock, a combination of squealing guitars, intentional feedback, and strange vocal harmonies, were such now-famous British and Irish ugly rockers as Them, the Kinks, and the Yardbirds. Like fellow Aussies the Hoodoo Gurus, the Huxtons (why isn't their nickname "The Creepers"?) more or less follow this British model, though with some American-style modifications like vocal harmonies and guitars of the chiming, trebly sort associated with such bands as the Byrds.

Still, the Huxtons retain enough force to resemble the early Who, with drummer Arch Law and bassist Matthew Eddy's rumbling rhythm section and lead singer Rob Craw's milk-curdling snarl. Paris suggests that the Huxtons must be a killer live band. The credit for the successes of Paris--and the blame for its failures--must rest on the shoulders of producer Ian "Mack" McKenzie, who committed that live sound to vinyl. For most of the songs, the production is too antiseptic, too well-scrubbed for the type of rough, crude music the Huxtons play. Occasionally, though, McKenzie and the Huxtons click, as on the wall-of-noise landscape behind the Huxton's theme song "I've Been Around."

On that song, Craw sings, "My darker side, my Huxton Creeper side, wants to be set free." One wonders, however, if it isn't Craw's softer side that wants to be set free. The songs he composes by himself have a tendency towards melodic balladry that doesn't mesh with the rest of the Huxtons' musical vision.

This is not to say that the other songs on Paris lack hooks. "I Will Persuade You" and "Part The Seas" will stick in your mind, no matter how hard you try to forget them. Other songs, such as "Long Hot Summer," creep into your consciousness after repeated listenings. So approach 12 Days to Paris with caution, then, because its Ugly Rock will infect you and set your Huxton Creeper side free.