The Soft Pack's eponymous album is a garage rock classic. As such, it is both utterly lacking in innovation, and crudely compelling. They do it well, and what they do is simple and onrushing. We all know the antecedents of this mainly North American phenomenon, and we know that anyone who name checks this style has The Seeds, Iggy Pop, and The Ramones in their closet, as well as early REM. And indeed, this California band has all of that going on. The fifth track, "Pull Out", had me dancing in my living room today, not something a moderately depressed person usually does. It's that fun, that good, that dumb. There are and will be more complex, multicultural, and surprising albums this year. Not sure there will be one more addictively visceral.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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