Strawberry Weed
- Rock/Alternative
- 2008
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by Mojo Flucke, PhD
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But then track #3, "Boo Boo Goo Goo," is completely different, straight Kinks-ian power pop loaded with classic Farfisa organ lines. This cut already hit the top 20 in the band's native Sweden. Fans have loved this band over there for a decade, where its 2002 album Love for the Streets won the equivalent of a Swedish Grammy for kjick-assin'est album. "Crystal" also loads up on the Farfisa, one of the chosen organs of the 1960s garage rock scene, to add a great vintage feel. Throughout the record, the lyrics are cute, meaningless pop ("I'm going in orbit with you-ou, ooh-wee-ooh") which kinda mirrors the whole post-Dylan, pre-Zep 1960s garage-psych era in general ("A potion that I had too much of / It was a double shot of my baby's love.").
It's interesting, though: While 1960s American garage rockers dug the Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley beat and whipped up a lot of songs that emulated hits like "96 Tears," "Gloria," and "Wild Thing," Euro-garage sounded more harmonious, more British Invasion, more Merseybeat than their American counterparts, but just as sloppy and lo-fi. The Caesars celebrate this tradition, dropping in layered harmonies over upbeat melodies that just don't let up (read: slow down enough to bore). It's Manchester-y guitar pop, it's the stuff the Happy Mondays, Charlatans, and Inspiral Carpets were stabbing at, too. Except these guys, who have been around a decade, seem to have more polish and a more keen sense of what makes a nice, uncomplicated pop song, and how much fuzz and static is just enough without being self-consciously over-distorted or head-rattling. It's a quite refreshing twist on a well-plowed furrow in rock's back forty acres. It's Robert Pollard, except Brit-poppy better and served up by guys 20 years his junior. Worth a listen, but here's a spoiler alert: If you heard this was the band featured in the "Jerk It Out" iPod commercial a couple years ago and arrange your CD-buying around that, you're going to be disappointed that the track is conspicuously absent from the record. However, 99 cents will get it legally for you, anyway.
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