White Denim’s New Album, “Fits” Will Rock Your Pants Off

By COED Staff

By Evan Kessler

Back in 2005, three veterans of the Austin, Texas music scene, bassist Steve Terebecki, drummer Josh Block and singer-guitarist James Petralli, joined forces for what would become White Denim. The band debuted with their 2008 release, Workout Holiday, and the single, “Let’s Talk About It” garnered them a healthy following in the UK. But it’s their latest album, Fits, that they hope will give them some due attention back home.

The opening musical crescendo to White Denim’s sophomore album Fits, serves like a track referee alerting runners to take their mark.  The starting gun sounds 46 seconds into the first track, “Radio Milk How Can You Stand It,” launching the album into a spastic 100 meter dash of jazz-tinged punk led by the driving nature of Josh Block’s drumming and Steve Terebecki’s frenetic bass lines. Imagining a dance party going on simultaneously is to imagine epileptic children playing video games.

It’s not all punk-jazz rave ups though as structure takes hold for the 2nd track “All Consolation” revealing crunchy guitar riffs complimented by some moments of solo virtuoso.  The sea of influences that penetrates this record could almost seem like overkill in the hands of less able musicians, but coupling a punk sensibility reminiscent of The Stooges and Minutemen and throwing in surprising nods to traditional eastern sounds at the end of “Say What You Want” before seamlessly bursting into a Spanish language flare up that is “El Hard Attack DCWYW” is at the very least an aural delight.

All of the sudden you’ve made it through four songs when the lead single, “I Start To Run” a straight up rock and roll tune if there ever was one reminds you that there is a finish line  and if you’re going to get there you’re going to have to rock your ass off with a steady diet of garage blues stomp.

If the first half of the album seems like an all out sprint, the second half reminds you that any good runner has to pace themselves…and by pace themselves maybe that runner drop out of the race to stop by their stoner friend’s house take a time machine to the 70’s and just chill out for a bit listening to AM radio until this whole race idea blows over.  “Mirrored and Reversed” is psychedelic space out that sometimes feels like it bridges a musical gap between Bowie and the Doors, more “Thick as A Brick” than “Raw Power” like a tripped out hippie jam-rock otherworld flower that was waiting to blossom at the top of a punk beanstalk.

Fits continues along to the polar opposite from whence it came, never once sacrificing the musicianship, but the amps have most certainly been turn down a few notches to a healthy 6 instead of 11. “Paint Yourself” could easily inspire a wavy-armed dance from a sea of My Morning Jacket enthusiasts and Phish fans alike and “I’d Have It Just The Way We Were” continues a similar vibe before listeners are reminded that this album once rocked pretty hard.

“Everybody Somebody” returns to that rock and roll feel, picking up where “I Start To Run” got intercepted by psychedelia.  It sounds like it could exist on any Classic Rock radio station in the days before Bon Jovi was bestowed with the honor of that genre, sounding a hybrid of “Suzie Q”, “Baby Please Don’t Go” and “Machine Gun” before building to a funkier climax.

The album reverts back to 70’s soft rock stylings on “Regina Holding Hands”, not quite reaching “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” depths, but certainly carving valleys of sensitivity to separate mountains of solid rock, before closing on a relatively uninspired note with “Syncn” which culminates with a string of grating la la la’s.

Looking at White Denim’s Fits as a whole, you’d have to consider the irony of the title as the songs on this album certainly cannot be placed snugly into the contents of one genre, nor do they seem like they all fit comfortably within the contents of the track listing.

Perhaps, the band might benefit from fitting them onto 2 different EPs.  Stylistic meanderings aside, the band tackles these songs with a certain aplomb and zeal of skilled songsmiths.  They’re always utterly listenable and never fail to evoke a toe-tapping body shaking response…and really you can’t ask for much more than that.