Thin White Rope
Moonhead
THIN WHITE ROPEs second album, Moonhead, is an edge-of-chaos masterpiece, an album that sounds like NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE tackling JOY DIVISIONs Unknown Pleasures. All of the 14 songs, even a pounding redo of JIMMY REEDs blues classic "Aint That Lovin You Baby," are so wound up and tense that the band sounds like it could explode at any point; the fact that it doesnt, not even on extended guitar workouts like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and the epic closer "Take It Home," gives the album an almost unbearable tension and sense of foreboding. The songs all basically start at the same point - dual-guitar leads over Jozef Beckers Krautrock-like steady pulses and Stephen Tesluks throbbing, minimal basslines -- but Guy Kysers lyrics and tortured wails to give rise to deadpan humor, providing the album with so much variation that it never becomes deadening. An intense, satisfying LP, Moonhead is THIN WHITE ROPEs most substantial and powerful effort.