Send "Dirtbombs " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Slantmagazine |
 A garage band with one foot outside the garage, the Dirtbombs has always seemed bent on expanding their horizons, retaining standard rock themes while making room for more extensive explorations. Their last album, 2008's We Have You Surrounded, took on a post-apocalyptic concept in the context of short, gritty songs, shaping a larger narrative while eschewing the usual flab associated with this kind of undertaking. On the heels of such a tight, surprisingly well-executed lark, Party Store appears woefully half-baked, a slack attempt that never really coalesces into a whole. The album opens somewhat unevenly with "Cosmic Cars," a surly mass of plodding, distorted guitar and monotone lyrics. Yet at least in this sense, on this and others songs that get by on subtle hints of self-awareness, like the gruff "Alleys of Your Mind," the band's tone still feels familiar, muscular, and grouchy. They fall somewhere between tribute and parody, synthesizing the brute energy of Detroit muscle rock with a kind of dissociative wryness. If the band is innately familiar with the rules of this kind of territory, they sound completely out of their depth in other attempts. The strangest track here is "Good Life," a catchy but incessantly vapid dance number that seems slipped in from an entirely different album. Lead singer Mick Collin's harsh voice is matched with a sunny-sounding female companion, resulting in what's either an over-elaborate joke or lame attempt at accessibility. The band gets in even further over their heads with the sickly one-two punch of "Bug in the Bassbin" and "Jaguar," two soggy instrumentals that clog up 27 minutes of time, amounting to little more than piddling noise. The band kicks back into gear for the forceful, repetitive "Tear the Club Up." By this point, Party Store has comprised eight songs and 50-odd minutes, one half of which has been utterly wasted. A refusal to accept genre limitations has generally been the band's strong point, but here there's no hint of any kind of integration. Rather than work their way into the fabric of each song, the experimental gestures all end up as self-contained songs, leaving Party Store sounding not only too skimpy, but unalterably diffuse....full text |
| Consequenceofsound |
| It should come as no surprise to anyone that Mick Collins and his cohorts, also known as The Dirtbombs, are avid enthusiasts of the Detroit music scene, having earned a reputation as one of the city’s most formidable live acts in their 15 years around, during which they’ve released a slew of 7” singles, EPs, and four full-length albums. It should also come as no surprise for them to release a covers album; their sophomore effort was devoted entirely to reworkings of soul and funk numbers from the likes of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and George Clinton. Just as they transformed these groovy, r&b jams from the ’60s-’70s into hard-ripping, though somehow soulful, garage punk anthems, they’ve now released their fifth proper long-player: again, a record comprised entirely of covers, this time, sampling influential techno artists from the ’80s-’90s, all of whom hail from Detroit. For those who have been waiting on the “bubblegum pop” record the band has been promising to come out with for as long as Dr. Dre has been hyping up Detox, it appears you will have to keep waiting, the very notion beginning to seem unlikely to ever come to fruition. As their 2001 effort, Ultraglide in Black, will attest to, The Dirtbombs can pretty much mutate any genre into their brand of hard-ripping garage-rock, and it seems they’ve taken on another challenge with Party Store (which in Detroit slang means bodega, or convenience store), a record that pays homage to vintage techno, but by no means is a techno album. You have to be a native of Detroit to even recognize any of these tunes, but as the band has remained a landmark in their locale, it is likely that their hard-line fans will. Whereas the range of music The Dirtbombs have adopted has always been eclectic, from the soul of Ultraglide to the New Wave cover of Sparks’ “Sherlock Holmes”, located on their most recent record, We Have You Surrounded, Party Store finds them, for the first time ever, revamping electronica and computerized sounds into live, organic instrumentalism....full text |
| Popmatters |
| There are theoretically an infinite number of ways to start an album, but several patterns have become standbys in the rock ‘n’ roll playbook. There’s the faux rehearsal (the muffled chatter and amp heartbeat flickering in Radiohead’s “2+2=5”), and then the pretty acoustic guitar strum (Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One”). Probably most mysterious of all when it really shouldn’t be, there’s the naked drum beat. It is the skeleton of any song, but alone it’s capable of kicking up suspense for what muscle and skin will surround it. Personal favorite drum-starters range from R.E.M.‘s Best-Album-By-Anyone-Ever New Adventures In Hi-Fi, DJ Clue’s The Professional 2 and Weezer’s new dark horse since Pinkerton got the corner office, Maladroit. All were fresh-air detours in their respective genres, and now we graciously lay another brick in the wall. The Dirtbombs, meanwhile, are tearing theirs down. This is the rare band that instantly snagged the ears on first listen, but the honeymoon period was about one LP side long, and then it started to sound like they worshipped tested rock ‘n’ roll patterns with a little too much bowed-head devotion. Naked drum beat aside, suspense was already part of the game plan on Party Store, as it’s been a while since we last heard the Dirtbombs. From the low-slung growl in Mike Collins’ voice, it sounds like the first time he’s heard himself in a while. On opener “Cosmic Cars”, his vocals creak in tune like well-trodden floorboards, a far cry from the wiggly soul man of 2003. If any of Party Store is about doing what’s expected, it’s over and done before you can say “beer me”. The party this unsung Detroit band have in store is a strange one, to be clear, but how they work around convention to make it strange is the album’s true delight. The boney garage-funk of “Sharivari” sounds like a noirish Beat Happening, just worried enough about repeating themselves that they’ve tightened the screws, locked the doors and painted the walls black for motivation. Where previous albums like Ultraglide in Black rocked with a somewhat lighthearted vigor, Party Store takes the control and precision to post-punk levels (with a serious tone to match). Paradoxically, by buckling down and making music that simply sounds more focused on artistry, the Dirtbombs have allowed themselves to get looser, and by extension, closer to the feel of a crack live band. Indeed, it is Party Store‘s urge to not merely push but violently shove the envelope, to joyously erase whatever parameters critics have ascribed to them, that makes it such a wondrous listen....full text |
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