Harvey Milk

by

Harvey Milk

To think if this had been their first release. As the story goes, it sat dormant, rough copies spreading until a proper release in ‘09. By the time we got My Love, the band had moved onto the broader conceptual horizons that would make up most of their body of work, but this is the band at their most Clear and Focused. This is a band that fuckin’ plays the shit out of some songs, the same feeling they revived with The Pleaser (an album which would also include the s/t’s boisterous, pure classic rock closing track). I would never describe it as simple, though, and much less concise. Spiers’ haunting growl here is mildly cavernous as opposed to the traditional blunt, dry texture, but the guitar is loud, the bass zings, the snare cracks, all joining in ecstatic cacophony to demonstrate: They always had within them every future element demonstrated across their discography. The drawn out pacing, abrupt snaps in tempo, the chest pounding palm mutes, the brief asides of point-counterpoint, the terrifying dynamic range (particularly on My Father’s Life’s Work). They were always this band, whether they’re playing one key on a piano or doing Billy F Gibbons proud.