Although LA’s long-running motor-rockers Lords Of Altamont very clearly mine the Nixon era for their sonic palette (it’s right there in the name), Wild Sounds Of The Lords Of Altamont is no retro-throwback stoner-rock navel-gaze bullshit. This thing is alive and electric, snarly and explosive, a wall of fuzz and venom and bone splinters that’s sorta like Electric Wizard playing Thee Hypnotics’ version of an alternative soundtrack to Satan’s Sadists by the Blues Magoos. You know what I mean? It has always been here before, in other words.
There’s a long and rich history of motorcycle-driven rock’n’roll, and the Lords are hip to all of it. This album, their sixth full-lengther, is rife with devastating uppercuts like the rip-snorting Been Broken, organ-heavy howler It SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“f934e5ce-8d9e-4bdb-86c2-9bf1480a31eb” id=“6c3cb684-1a79-45cf-bbbe-3ac4ed6b73a1”>Ain’t Revolution and the positively Zodiac Mindwarp-esque biker-scuzz chugfest Death On The Highway. There are no ballads, no concessions, no mercy for the weak of flesh or constitution, but there are a couple of potential radio hits (Going Downtown, Can’t Lose), if radio somehow miraculously comes back.
This is really how teenage dirtbags in 1969 wished Steppenwolf sounded. Now we get to be those dirtbags. What a goddamn age of miracles we live in.
