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Thursday, June 20, 2013

ALBUM REVIEW: the WOGGLES - Big Beat

the WOGGLES - Big Beat (Wicked Cool)

Supercharged party rock from one of the most reliable garage revival bands working today.


For over 20 years Georgia's Woggles have been kicking out relentlessly fun garage rock of the highest quality. When you put on a Woggles album you can count on having a good time. A really fucking good time. You're going tap your toes. You're going to shake your head. You're going to want to get up and dance. With this new one you're going to probably HAVE to get up and dance. And then thirty-some minutes later you're going to feel compelled play it again and dance some more.

The Woggles never played the cooler-than-thou tough-guy brand of garage that was in vogue when they hit the scene in the early 90's. Even on their early, harder rocking albums and singles, the Woggles still had a maximum R&B feel that made their records sound like a kick-ass party. Over the years they've honed that vibe and made the grooves stronger. The Woggles capture the spirit of the first garage bands playing frat parties and teen dances when the main objective was making the kids dance and to have a good time. Few bands seem as committed to keeping that spirit alive as the Woggles are. They remind me a lot of the Fleshtones in their heyday (a comparison I don't make lightly - the Fleshtones are gods).

The Woggles are super-tight and totally energized on Big Beat, which pushes everything into overdrive. At times I hear a garage-ified Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Other times they sound like a more primal Easybeats. There's a little Kinks, Sonics, and Animals in there as well. The songs are so solid across the board that it plays like a singles collection. Not a weak song in the bunch. They even deliver a stellar take on the much covered Frankie Laine standard, "Jezebel", a song I was sure that I didn't need to hear anyone else do. But they take ownership of it and make it work.

Big Beat is one of the best garage albums of the last few years. Probably the strongest album in the band's stellar catalog. It rocks. It swings. It's fun as hell!

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