The Ponys – “Turn The Lights Out” (2007)
Posted by (un)relaxeddad on April 24, 2007
The Ponys are an unpretentious rock’n’roll band from Chicago and “Turn The Lights Out” is their third album. It’s fabulous. Great songs, clanging, garage-band production and awesome guitar solos. Twelve fierce little nuggets ranging from the Cramps-like stomp of “Everyday Weapon” to the “Day Dream Nation” riffola of “Poser Psychotic”. Along the way, “Small Talk” merges a little shoe-gazer shimmer without losing an ounce of this band’s power.
The trick is the utter clarity of the arrangements where those little details that make all the difference – a phased solo here, a chiming overdub there, the harmony that comes in at just the right moment – work to maximum advantage. Nothing outstays its welcome and every song has that kind of “play me again NOW” quality people pay that 4 None Blondes woman Goldman Sachs bonus-sized amounts of money for.
You want more highlights? “1209 Seminary” takes off in a rush of surf guitars and tremelo and keeps on accelerating. It’s a record of crescendos, not climaxes.
Matador has two mp3s up. Download them, marvel at the best guitar noise I’ve heard all year and go buy the album.
