A (re)view from The States: #MILFHUNTERS tape by Indian Askin and The Afterveins

"#MILFHUNTERS?! Haha - interesting name choice."

J.J. Grob ,

Net zoals ook 3voor12 Zuid-Holland weleens buiten de grenzen van haar werkgebied kijkt, blijken er ook mensen te zijn die van (ver) buiten diezelfde grenzen naar binnen kijken. Vanuit de Verenigde Staten van Amerika heeft onze correspondent de nieuwste tape die The Afterveins uit Rotterdam samen met het Amsterdamse Indian Askin maakte onder de loep gelegd: a (re)view from The States, enjoy!

The Afterveins performing 'Crazy' (a song by Indian Askin)
Initially I was excited by the opening sounds of the drums and the recording lo-fi hiss which reminded me of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate or Unwound, but was soon disappointed by the rest of the package. It's immediately apparent that the drummer of this band has skills. Unfortunately his skill might outshine his compatriots. The singer is inconsistent as is the musicianship as a whole. The band seems to lose one another from time to time and, for the most part, the guitars are droll and uninteresting. I wouldn't use adjectives like tight or polished to describe their sound. The song has moments of good energy, but it gets lost in a shambolic performance which takes away from the cohesiveness of the track.

Indian Askin performing 'The Trouble' (a song by The Afterveins)
I liked this much better. It had an ominous droney quality that reminded me of the better part of early Doors (before Jim Morrison became bloated and thought he was the Messiah) peppered with some simple drums and a distanced backing vocal that I think complimented the track nicely and gave it a subtleness that the song called for. The singer's growl can be a bit overdone and corny at times, but overall I think the performance was solid.

Both these tracks suffer a little on the lyrical content so you do best if you don't listen too closely for meaning. Overt, melodramatic & hackneyed rhyme like "she liked the rain, she liked the rain, and she liked the pain" should have ended up on the editing floor or rolled up in the ball of looseleaf it was written on and hidden under the garbage of last nights dinner so no one would ever have to experience it.

The Afterveins + Indian Askin performing 'Radio Golf'
It seems that for these two bands the whole is greater that the sum of their parts. The sounds somehow work really well together. Thick and lush harkening to Brain Jonestown Massacre and all the garage psychedelic bands they were trying to imitate. Though I am not usually one much for jams, I thought these two bands were able to communicate well and bring the track down and give it space to breathe without falling victim to the usual 'everyone playing incongruous solos over everyone else' type messes that jams can become. Perhaps Amsterdam and Rotterdam can put aside their differences and join hands and walk off into a psychedelic sunset together?

JJ is a lad from NJ (in the former British colonies) who did the better part of whatever growing up he was to do in the 80's where he subsisted mostly on hair metal and ham sandwiches. He's since moved west where he spends the majority of his nights trolling the internet for obscure garage rock and anything else that helps him forget he's hurtling through space on a giant ball of mud at breakneck speeds.