"Bachelor Party" is a pretty good example of a Blag'ard song: the chorus chords could totally have been swiped from The Toadies, and the verse is entirely based around natural harmonics. There's one guitar and a drumset, but the sound never comes off hollow because of the noisy execution. The song goes out on a noisy 30 seconds of cymbal-filled crescendo�peak, and then the next song's bizarre guitar lines begin. Each song functions on its weirdness as much as its groove, and because of that each song pretty much rules.

My main complaint about Blag'ard is that their vocals always seem kind of just tossed on last minute, and that's because the two band members sing themselves. I understand the logic of not wanting to hire a third member since you already did everything yourselves, but the group would really have benefited from an enthusiastic frontman. As it is, songs are weighed down by what sounds like a really really bored version of Green Day's Billy Joe Armstrong. However, with each listen the vocals became less and less important to me since the drums and guitar are like nothing else out there right now. You just have to get used to the fact that the singing isn't meant to be the focal point of the music and then it's all good.

There's something really exciting about the two man approach, though. There's no hassle or anything, two guys just walk into a room and record some jams. There should be minimal artistic differences and not too much battling for the spotlight, and (I have a point, I swear) the music should sound just really direct because of all that. The White Stripes totally sounded like exactly what must be going on in Jack White's head, and Death From Above 1979 are something incredible in terms of precision. Right along those lines of logic stand Blag'ard, and the public eye doesn't turn on these guys right away then I've lost all faith in the concept of 'buzz'.

For Fans Of: Polvo, Sonic Youth