Killed 'Em Deader 'n a Six Card Poker Hand

There is a brutal, joyful simplicity to the Epsilons garage rock attack. In the new millennium, garage punk can often be the domain of tongue-in-cheek hipsters or borderline musicologists posing as the lumpen proletariat. But this (really) young band from Orange County, CA sound like the real, raw deal: with singer Ty Segall's primal howl, piles of white-hot guitar fuzz, and a cheap synthesizer cutting through all of the din, the Epsilons tear through the fast and primal terrain of Killed 'Em Deader 'N a Six Card Poker Hand in fierce fashion. For a close comparison, look to San Francisco's Mummies, whose budget rock barbaric yawps from the early '90s are really the only thing in the immediate ballpark (i.e., equal parts Devo and Nuggets). This is brilliantly untethered stuff that was recorded on the cheap. Check out the bludgeoning rise and fall of "I Hate Your Face," the careening Stooges-meets-Munsters "Problems" (with its delightful, mid-song guitar meltdown), and the snot-punk bounce and fury of "(You're A) Liar." Few bands handle the garage-punk idiom this well or in this raw a manner. It's as if the Epsilons have absorbed the best and most brutal lessons of the last 40 years, processed them, and upped the ante. An impressive, impressive effort. The band's self-titled debut hinted at greatness; this sophomore effort delivers in spades.