Destroy the Warming Sun!

Well, it worked in the early ’90s. Back then bands like Man or Astro-Man? and Six Finger Satellite regularly devolved Devo and Dick Dale into mucky noise-rock art projects and surf guitar send-ups wired to Art Bell’s brain. It got old quick, but it was fun for a while. Fortunately the masked locals in The Amino Acids understand that sound’s ADD shelf life. Their manic surf-punk instrumentals often whiz by in less than 60 seconds — on Destroy the Warming Sun!, there are only two tracks longer than three minutes — and they never get too cute with the vintage sci-fi samples. (You can only hear so many square white guys from the 1950s decrying the Martian race.) There’s a theremin in the Amino Acids’ midst, which is great for a few fart noises from the outer limits (the squelch on "Dunked in the Think Tank" is particularly rewarding), and the punk snarl of the Acids rhythm section makes "Trafalgar" and "Cycles-Pin" sound like the Munsters bashing through old Business or Angelic Upstarts tracks. Ultimately the album’s still pretty suggestive of the old Astro-Man? stuff. But those guys hung it up last year, so why not Destroy the Warming Sun? These guys jam Amino.

Johnny Loftus writes about music for Metro Times. E-mail [email protected].