Vile Imbeciles – 'Queenie Was A Blonde' review
Remember back in mid-1994, when Kurt’s body was still warm, and the slacker-hipster torch was picked up by Beck’s Mellow Gold, the Beasties’ Ill Communication and Pavement’s Crooked Rain Crooked Rain? No? Well stick on Queenie was a Blonde and it’ll come flooding back, because here we have the natural confluence of all of those records, something in between lo-fi US indie and white hip-rock, with the mess, waster charisma and genre-bending sporadic magnificence that that entails.
So opener Bad Ideas rattles like a more sullen Loser, Blind Truth updates Heart Attack Man and Empty Vessel is an even drunker Hit the Plane Down. But Queenie Was A Blonde has its own personality too, of bloody-mindedness, wilfully awkward invention and slacker anger: it’s by no means perfect, but records as different and effortless-sounding as this deserve attention.
8/10
