April 28, 2000

Go Kill Mice

Such laudable commitment to this most exhilaratingly grimy brand of rock'n'roll shines through in every compulsive convulsion..

7 / 10 Far off in some alternate 1970s, Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell (from Noo Yoik punk-poets Television) are stranded in some dusty nowheresville town where the locals look at you funny if you walk upright. No petrol left in the tank, and no money for gas, food or lodgings. And then Richie, Richie says, "Hey man, let's dress up like balls-to-the-wall garage bluesers, think of what we could do!"

/img/starlitedesperation0400.jpg This is the exact moment 'Go Kill Mice', The Starlite Desperation's debut album, conjures up, with its elegant garble of fractured Stones riffs, death-rattle drums and guitarist Dante Adrian-White's snotty yelp. From the insouciant smack-strut of opener 'What I Want', to the hollow-eyed psychobilly of the closing title track, 'Go Kill Mice' is a faultless writhe of too-cool no-hoper boogie, a dustbowl stomp so screwed up on cheap booze and bad drugs that it can't see beyond the four walls of the garage it was no doubt recorded in. Profoundly possessed by the spirit of self-destruction, this is 40 minutes of rock'n'roll forever on the verge of thrilling collapse.

The Starlite Desperation actually chose to leave their sun-kissed hometown of California for their current digs in Detroit - home of widespread unemployment, fearsome murder-rates, and, of course, Iggy and Da Stooges. Such laudable commitment to this most exhilaratingly grimy brand of rock'n'roll shines through in every compulsive convulsion contained herein, and earns them a perfect .