BRIEF NOTES ON THE WEIRDNESS

The new Stooges album, that is. It's a cross between Raw Power and one of the harder/noisier Iggy solo albums (Instinct or Beat 'Em Up). Lyrically, it's pure solo Ig, and musically, they seem so desperate to prove themselves still relevant/badass that they've dumped one of their greatest strengths: their ability to lay down a mechanistic pile-driver of a riff until your skull imploded. Everything here is hard 'n' fast, and shorter than it needs to be - the Stooges were never about two-minute songs. And Albini's usual drum sound just doesn't work for Scott Asheton, sorry. Chalk this one up as a disappointment (somewhat inevitable - they're just not the guys they were, period) and hope they don't pad the set too strongly with new ones when they tour this year. Glad I saw 'em in '05, back before they even started writing this material. Even then, the two songs they did from Iggy's Skull Ring CD (the title track and "Little Electric Chair," IIRC) were total momentum-killers.