{"id":651,"date":"2011-11-23T05:01:33","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T10:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=651"},"modified":"2011-11-23T05:01:33","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T10:01:33","slug":"album-review-the-hangmen-lost-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/23\/album-review-the-hangmen-lost-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Hangmen – Lost Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sporting a cover that riffs visually on the Rolling Stones<\/a>\u2019<\/strong> Aftermath<\/em> is pretty much asking for trouble. And using Photoshop to imbue the cover image with surface wear that mimics a well-used LP sleeve, well, that\u2019s courting an extra-critical approach to the contents of the album. Luckily, Lost Rocks<\/em> from The Hangmen<\/strong> stands up defiantly to such pressure.<\/p>\n

The press kit calls The Hangmen a \u201clegendary Los Angeles band.\u201d Me, I\u2019d never heard of \u2018em. The same presskit describes the band as \u201craw, punk rock\u2019n\u2019roll,\u201d but Allmusic.com classifies The Hangmen as heavy metal. Now, when I think of L.A. punk, that calls to mind bands that don\u2019t do a lot for me (I prefer the generally less pissed-off and more musical east coat, Midwest and English variants). And Los Angeles heavy metal? Let\u2019s just not go there.<\/p>\n

But judging from the eighteen tracks this collection, The Hangmen are really a straight-ahead, rocking-out no-bullshit band in the tradition of The Georgia Satellites<\/strong> and The Replacements<\/strong>. Vocalist Bryan Small<\/strong> sounds like an American Graham Parker<\/strong> as he snarls lyrics about life and love.<\/p>\n

Despite the implications inherent in its title, Lost Rocks<\/em> is no fazed-cookies collection of unreleased demos and b-sides: it\u2019s more a best-of set (three early demos are tacked on the end for fun). The sleeve\u2019s Stones connection is heard in the songs: \u201cBent\u201d filters American c&w through a Mick Taylor<\/strong>-era Rolling Stones sensibility. Some of the songs do swagger in a just-this-side-of Guns\u2019n\u2019Roses<\/strong> style (probably responsible for the metal tag), but prominent use of harmonica on tracks like \u201cDesperation Town\u201d moves things back toward Long Ryders<\/strong><\/a> territory. Thank goodness.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a garage vibe (sans organ) on many of the tracks, but The Hangmen seem less concerned with evoking a bygone style than they do in throwing in whatever sonic elements best get their musical point across. In the case of \u201cWild Beast\u201d it\u2019s a wah-wah guitar solo, something not often found among the Nuggets<\/em>-worshipping set.<\/p>\n

Brief testimonials from the likes of Mike Ness<\/strong> (Social Distortion<\/strong>) and Radio Birdman<\/strong>\u2019s Rob Younger<\/strong><\/a> make the point that The Hangmen (a) have some hip fans and (b) aren\u2019t a bunch of musical poseurs. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Lost Rocks<\/em> is how all this music (originals spanning 1989-2007) escaped my notice for so long. Lost Rocks<\/em> happily rights that wrong.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sporting a cover that riffs visually on the Rolling Stones\u2019 Aftermath is pretty much asking for trouble. And using Photoshop to imbue the cover image with surface wear that mimics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}