Earl Greyhound: Soft Targets

Earl Greyhound’s first full-length, a vast improvement on this NYC band’s self-titled EP, starts with a monster cut, all Page-ish strut in its slow-boogie guitar riff, all Plant-like abandon in the “Immigrant Song” wail that cuts across it. That’s “S.O.S.”, one of the most uncompromising straight-up rock songs you’ll hear this year, and it’s just one of several — “Like a Doggy”, “Monkey” and the particularly evil “Fashion” — that raises the ghost of 1970s heaviness, not just Zeppelin, but glam-rockers like Slade, Queen and Mott the Hoople. That’s where the band gets the pop tease that balances its slash and burn riffs, the pop sensibility in “All Better Now”‘s rollercoaster chorus of “All Better Now” or the nearly new wave-y bounce of “It’s Over.” This very photogenic band — long-haired guitar hero Matt Whyte, afro’d beauty Camara Thomas and powerhouse drummer Ricc Sheridan — has already been caricatured in The New Yorker… can a Fashions of the Times spread be far behind?