Terry – Terry HQ

Prepare for Imminent Garagification

You could – technically – call fledgling Australian quartet Terry a supergroup, if you were so inclined, in the same way you could technically call being pelted with bricks by an angry mob a “deep tissue massage” if you were trying to kick start an ill-advised rage-fueled business venture. Terry features members of Dick Diver, Total Control and former Bad Seed Mick Harvey’s band, who are all certainly super groups in their own right. Still, it’s weird that music fans elect to indiscriminately dub any group whose members can be proven to have previously played an instrument in public as “super.” “Supergroup” makes us all think of guitar heroes like Eric Clapton of Cream, or huge personalities in disguise like Dylan, Orbison, Petty and Harrison in Travelling Wilburys. What’s even more confounding in the fact that there are plenty of decidedly un-super supergroups, (Velvet Revolver springs to mind) but it’s really the only succinct way to inform an audience that someone in a band was in a band before this particular band was a band.

Judging by their non-descript name and the rolling, crackling storm front of a bassline that kicks off the debut LP, Terry HQ, they’re a band that would scoff at any such antiquated title. Opener “Moscow” crackles, fizzes and scrapes past in a two-minute flurry of garage rock that’s reminiscent of the first British invasion and sporting the droning, discordant vocal harmonies straight from The Mothers of Invention’s “Hungry Freaks, Daddy.” Indeed, the engineering and production of the jovially bouncy “Uncle Greg” might just trick you into thinking you’re hearing an outtake from Piper at The Gates of Dawn or a long-lost single by a contemporary of The Troggs that managed to slip through the cracks of cultural memory; the slightly sloppy alt-rock sounds straight from the era of rock ’n’ roll that just barely preceded the coming psychedelic wave, right before the scratchy guitar tone of 13^th Floor Elevators and The Sonics morphed into the warm, full realized tube amp sound of the ‘70s. Tinny, falsetto backing vocals and stuttering surf rock reverb blend and meld into lead guitar melodies and, in this, Terry maintain a very primitive type of musical synergy that fewer and fewer contemporary indie/alt rock bands seem able to muster. “Don’t Say Sorry” starts out as a fairly standard garage bop, but quickly unravels into a vortex of tremolo picking and dive-bombs and crash cymbals before stopping on a dime to jump back into fab four formation. “Bring Me The Bomb” best utilizes Terry’s shifts in prominence between male and female vocals, though members of both sexes serenade in the same snotty sneer as Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer, save for during the clumsy, angsty stomp of “Chitter Chatter.”

Modern touches come in the form of woodblock percussion, the lazy, loosely Violent Femmes-esque strumming that lines “Hot Heads,” and the weird, marimba-like sound effect that start to emerge in the brambly thicket of “Uncle Greg 2.” “Third War” is the only songs that lingers long enough for you to really think about it, one of only three tracks that break three minutes. Closer “Hang Men” stands as a half-monologue, half “Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun” bongo-laced hymn. And then, as quickly as it burst in, Terry HQ dissipates with nary a feedback squeal or period of silence to signal their exit. Though almost none of Total Control’s brooding post-punk made it through the merger, Terry offer a fresh take on the garage/psych flavor of the month on their first outing.