CD: Admiral Black – Phantasmagoric

You’ve got to love the “I Can Only Give You Everything” riff. Admiral Black do and base their “Got Love if You Want It” around an inverted version on their debut album. Cheese-wire fuzz guitar pulses, Bo Diddley drums bash and a wheezy organ, well, wheezes. From the borrowed title alone, it’s obvious where Admiral Back are coming from: classic Sixties-leaning rock. It's not all scuzz and psych though in the house of Black.

Not to be confused with the Chicago rock/metal outfit Admiral of Black, Admiral Black are the vehicle of Shaun Mulrooney. An ex-pat Irishman, he lives in Berlin. Last decade, his former outfit Humanzi specialised in a jagged guitar rock not far from the similarly named Fugazi or Danish band Diefenbach but with Goth-ish undertones. The retooled Mulrooney’s garage rock passes by the gutter blues of The Gun Club and Spacemen 3’s more streamlined moments via solo Chris Bailey (of The Saints). Bailey isn’t the only Australian Phantasmagoric evokes – fans of The Died Pretty, Celibate Rifles and Hoodoo Gurus are directed here.

Phantasmagoric is a blast, but it isn’t quite there. Hobbled by a skeletal, undeveloped production, this is a music that demands a density which brings mystery. The unimaginative lyrics (“I meet the desolation in her eyes, but yet a certain beauty in her smile”; “I want you, I need you, I guess it's lonely in the city”) could do with being buried in sonic murk. It’s a fair bet Admiral Black would work better live.

Watch the video for “The Worm of the Third Sting”, from Admiral Black’s Phantasmagoric