If you call yourselves The Molochs and, two albums into your career, you still haven’t released a record called Never Mind The Molochs, you seriously need to have a word with yourselves.
It would certainly be a better title than America’s Velvet Glory, which (apart from the ‘Velvet’ bit, which is a dead giveaway) implies some blustering sub-Springsteen bollocks, when in fact what we have here is a damn fine set of stripped-back 1960s garage rock/R&B, with no-doubt Chelsea-booted feet occasionally dipped in the waters of Violent Femmes-esque country gothic and twee C86.
Right now my favourite song is ‘The One I Love’, catchier than a cactus, all knowingly dumb Valentines card rhymes (“There are many things I would like to do/And if you want, I can do them with you”. Awww) and a chorus that will have even the stoniest-hearted listeners grinning from ear to ear.
But yesterday it was opener ‘Ten Thousand’, a rumbling wail of alienation with a keyboard hook that is pure early Inspirals. Tomorrow it might be the harmonica-driven early Stones of ‘No More Cryin’’, or the, er, guitar-driven early Stones of ‘No Control’, with its deliciously pouty chorus (“No control I got no control, no control I got no control, no control, no control, no control…and it hurts”), or the Pastels-y ‘You and Me’; or indeed any of it, apart from the rather dull ‘Charlie’s Lips’ which pulls off the thankfully rare trick of feeling like it’s 8 minutes long but coming in under 4.
The Molochs’ only problem is that they sound like nice, polite young men trying to be all dark and sneery like Lou Reed, when in fact they’re at their best when they sound cute and lovelorn like Jonathan Richman. If they can ditch the Velvets-isms and mine the same seam that gave forth ‘The One I Love’ next time round, then they really will be the dog’s Molochs.
