July 12, 2007

The Mooney Suzuki

Have Mercy

6 / 10 In 1999, The Mooney Suzuki’s landmark ‘The Maximum Black EP’ made them heroes to New York’s neo-garage underground, at a time when Hoggboy were still Hoggfoetus. But in spite of having both the sunglasses and the rum-gargling swagger, TMS then utterly failed to ride the coat-tails of the garage rock revolution. It clearly stung, because since then they’ve worked tirelessly to punch their previous legacy in the face, in the process doing an entirely unneccesary album with Avril Lavigne’s writing team as producers and becoming the official band of the Suzuki Motor Corporation. 2007 finds them producing a tuneful, if soul-free pastiche of ’60s radio-rock that sounds like Creedence Clearwater Revival being revived by Three Dog Night. It’s amazingly well-wrought, but also amazingly pointless.

Gavin Haynes

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