Howler - America Give Up

Die zweite Band, die der NME diese Woche pusht, ist ein Quintett aus Minneapolis, USA, das sich Howler nennt.

Jordan Gatesmith (Gesang, Gitarre), Brent Mayes (Drums), Ian Nygaard (Gitarre), Max Petrek (Keyboards) und France Camp (Bass) sind Anfang 20, und eine EP ("This One's Different") reichte dem NME bereits letztes Jahr aus, um sie auf Rang 3 ihrer "Best New Band 2011" Liste zu führen. Tribes landeten hier hingegen nur auf Platz 11.

"America Give Up" wird über Rough Trade vertrieben und bietet typisch amerikanischen, ungeschliffenen Indierock zwischen Garage und Strand, zwischen Ramones ("This One's Different"), Hüsker Dü ("Beach Sluts"), The Jesus & Mary Chain ("Back To The Grave") und The Strokes (eigentlich alle Songs). "Is This It" haben Howler sicherlich reichlich studiert, die Gitarren quengeln eben so gut wie bei den New Yorkern und auch die Röhrenjeans und Converse passen perfekt. Dazu ahmt Gatesmiths Gesang den von Julian Casablancas in allen Facetten vom locker hin gerotzten Vernuscheln bis zum röhrenden Schreien ziemlich nach. Und obwohl alle hier verwendeten Zutaten altbekannt und bewährt sind, klingt "America Give Up" frisch, aufregend und ungestüm. Würde die Platte mehr herausstechende Einzelsongs haben, hätte der NME Howler sicherlich wieder direkt zu besten und coolsten Band der Stunde erhoben.

Diese Woche konnte man dem NME vertrauen: Believe the hypes!

Howler: "Back of Your Neck" from Spunk Design Machine on Vimeo.

Dem NME ist das Debütalbum von Howler 8 Punkte wert:

Those who get it will get it, and they now can enjoy the band without an endless stream of idiots – spying the Converse and the fact they’re on Rough Trade – writing Howler off as being derivative or quite a lot like The Strokes. True or not, the story about how Rough Trade got on a plane to Howler’s native Minneapolis the minute they heard the demos is a fantastic one. That’s exactly how the rock’n’roll business should be done.

As Howler themselves put it on the title track of ‘This One’s Different’: “When the feeling is there, then it’s there”. You should just know. And, given a singer who is so obviously a star, plus a debut album called ‘America Give Up’ whose artwork rips off a Lucky Strike cig packet and which opens with a song called ‘Beach Sluts’ that sounds like The Modern Lovers and peaks with such a joyous, sped-up ending, how can you not? Just in case: there’s another called ‘Wailing (Making Out)’ that features the lines “I wanna get dressed, make a scene” and then “I wanna girl and a new car/I need a drink and a guitar”.

In mid-November, Howler promised to make “a dirty rock’n’roll” album, which is exactly what they’ve done, without any fluff. All 11 songs are full of energy, wit, fun, fuzz, fizz, sugar, spice and all things nice. The two songs from ‘This One’s Different’ (the title track and the still glorious ‘I Told You Once’) have been re-recorded and made even more high-octane; there’s another superlative pop song, complete with “woo-woo-woo-woooo”s, in the shape of ‘Back Of Your Neck’. ‘Back To The Grave’ swaggers rather than skips, propelled by deliciously sludgy guitars. There are ‘Too Much Blood’ and ‘Free Drunk’, which demonstrate that Howler can do romantic slowies. ‘Black Lagoon’ finds Jordan spelling out the title, but doing it as “B-L-A-C-K-L-A-G Oooooooh... Oooooooh... N!”

Hell, they’ve even managed to write a song called ‘America’ and not make it a load of self-righteous, preachy shit. Which, to my knowledge, is a first. ‘America Give Up’ is, quite simply, an effortlessly brilliant debut. Maybe it isn’t the wider world’s time to fall in love with a straight-up guitar band, but I couldn’t give a monkey’s, and neither should you.

Howler spielen am 11. Februar 2012 ihr einziges Deutschlandkonzert in Berlin (Comet Club).