Battlehooch's Self-Titled

Rating: 74

Track List:

1. Only Baby Sharks
2. Human Ram
3. Somersaults
4. Ringtone
5. Caliphate
6. Red Tide
7. Battlehooch
8. Honest

When I was on the eighth grade junior varsity football team, I had a coach that, no matter how badly we were playing, insisted we just needed to play with a little more heart. Up until now, I just thought he was a remarkably unhelpful leader; but now that I’ve listened to some Battlehooch, I’m beginning to understand what he meant. Their homemade debut Piecechow is, at most, thirty percent talent – the rest is all heart. Somewhere between “Fishmilk” and “Fishmilkery,” I suddenly know what it means to give 110 percent. “Looks You Can’t See” is by far the high note of the disc, but for the most part, they’re working with pretty mediocre material. There’s nothing exceptionally inventive about their music, but it’s so much fun that it really doesn’t matter. They’re like a more accessible Need New Body, which is to say, they’re like an accessible Need New Body.

With the kind of energy these guys exhibit, I wouldn’t be surprised if Piecechow was laid down in one take. This year’s self-titled full length isn’t going to do much to change my perception of San Francisco being one of the freakiest cities in the country, but it should certainly alter the perception of Battlehooch. This album feels much more rehearsed without severing all of the crazy spastic energy that makes the act worthwhile, and makes me really want to go to a live show. Anybody can make one dancy, spazz rocky, art punky album, but most fizzle out pretty quickly after. Need New Body, !!!, Feral Children, MGMT, The Unicorns, The Rapture, Bloc Party… to name a few. Battlehooch seems to be a rare case of rapid productivity working in their favor. When you’re making a fire and you get a spark, sometimes it’s best to protect it from wind and rain and feed it slowly until it develops into a flame. Then again, sometimes you’ve just gotta blow on those embers until you faint.

Unlike a fledgling fire, this album is remarkably consistent. In a lot of ways, Battlehooch’s biggest accomplishment here is leaving well enough alone. I have little doubt that stretching this album to a more conventional eleven or twelve tracks would entail the use of filler material. Behold the glory of self-production. There aren’t really any stand-outs like “Looks” from Piecechow, but from the salaciously bawdy “Human Ram” to the carousing chantey inspired “Red Tide,” there really aren’t any low points either. “Somersaults” really challenges the talent to heart ratio with breathtaking new heights of musicality. The relentless minstrelization of San Fran street corners has clearly ratcheted up the skill level of this new school jam band. You can catch flashes of revamped 60s drug rock in the same breath as ultra-modern Man Man minded experimentation. Influences can be questionably recognized or hypothesized about, but really, they’re mostly irrelevant. To say that Battlehooch marches to a different beat is an understatement, and frankly, more hackneyed a statement than they deserve.

Even in the recorded format, these guys really know how to put on a show. It’s a rare treat these days to find an earnestly “indie” band. Most of the time the term “indie” carries about as much veritable weight as “hipster.” The terms aren’t meaningless, quite the contrary in fact. These types of terms have too many meanings to too many people. But then you come across some fabulously mustachioed diamonds in the rough like Battlehooch and it just reminds you exactly what it is you like about “indie” music. I’m not going to pretend they’re one of my favorite bands now, but almost equally impressively, Battlehooch has made me question the qualifications of those sacred bands in the V.I.P. section of my heart. Street cred is not just for rappers anymore.