Brian Grosz: Bedlam Nights

On this album Brian Grosz cultivates an atmosphere of scuzz. You can see it in the publicity photographs, where he sits tattooed, lighting deviant cigarettes, and you can hear it in his voice, full of moans and razorblade growls, and you can hear it in his lyrics, all heartbreak and hangings, and you can hear it in the music, which churns and strains and clangs like a locomotive made out of old saucepans. Down and dirty scuzz-rock, that’s what he’s aiming for. You could even say that he aims too well, that the scuzz is a little too neat, that it moves directly across the scuzz blueprint from A to B with no room for side trips. A live bonus track gives us a different Grosz, one who jokes with the person recording him and sings with a looseness that doesn’t show up so much on the other eleven tracks. Under the tatts and growls he sounds rough-edged but essentially friendly.