BABY STRANGE are a quintet from one of Rock's finest Eastern US Seaboard strongholds, Boston, Mass. According to their website they've been plying their trade for the past four years or so and workng steadily on building the all-important fanbase. There has been a previous release, but the new "Make Out Sessions" is your reviewer's first taste of their elixir.
And, for a band based in the city that's previously given us alarmingly original talent like Pixies and Throwing Muses, there's a strangely Anglophile slant to Baby Strange's sound, which surprises more when you consider these five songs were hothoused by Bill Janovitz producer Brian Brown.
It's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Sure, brash opening tune "If I Didn't Know Better" has more than a measure of Oasis-style swagger, and singer Eric Deneen giving it plenty of loose-lipped Jagger attitude, but there's always room for anthemic tunes such as this, and with chilling lyrics like "I'd put a slash on each damn wrist," the track takes on a predatory, lustful hue and is all the better for it.
Things get more interesting as you proceed, too. "Why Didn't You Fall?" is another song with a big chorus, The Edge-style guitar harmonics from Kristoffer Ehrig and Hugh Wyman and a yearning feel and the frantic pounding, Strokes-y crunch and mad-eyed vocals on "Hotel Motel" suggests Baby Strange will have little problem fitting in at present.
Meawhile, if you were worried about "It's On" being a cover of the song with the same title by long-forgotten baggy Londoners Flowered Up, then panic ye not, because this "It's On" is a slow(ish) regretful thing, with cavernous guitar splurges from Wyman and a tangibly defiant attitude. "I knew I should justa told you to fuck off, but that's easier said than done" spits Deneen before the band slide into the diseased chorus. Pretty good, all told.
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For me, though, final track "Ups And Downs" is probably the best thing here. Emotionally scarred and convincingly steeped in atmosphere, it throws guitar shapes initially more in keeping with early New Order than anything from the Britpop era, and even when it brings in the chorus it sounds nicely different. I've no idea if they've more where this comes from, but I sincerely hope they have. It's affecting stuff and no mistake.
I'm not entirely convinced by some of these songs that Baby Strange have yet conjured a persona entirely their own, as some of the references on "The Make Up Sessions" are too obviously drawn from easily recognisable sources such as Oasis and The Stones. Nonetheless, these are still confident, cocksure tunes and at least on the basis of the last two tracks here, they are developing into something interesting which may well deserve further perusal a year or so further down the line.
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