Ringo Deathstarr / Colour Trip

Ringo Deathstarr
Colour Trip
(Club AC30)

Austin, Texas must have some kind of mad scientist living in its hills, pumping random bands out of a DNA generator and setting them off into the world. Look! Here's another one! And yes, they're as good as the last ones! Shucks Bill, that dang scientist has done it again.
Ringo Death Star are high on life: their songs are for the most part pumping, reverb-drenched speed rockers, frequently adorned with a guitar string stretched to 'disorientate mode'.
No surprises that they've supported A Place To Bury Strangers, with whom they share a love of blurring the colours of the music until you're unsure where the guitars start and the vocals end.
At its extreme, this method feels like a welcoming druggy haze ('Day Dreamy', which does precisely what it advertises). For the most part however, the atmospherics are never allowed to intrude on the filthiness, the sexiness of the riff. 'Tambourine Girl' announces itself with a downright horny, leather-wrapped lead guitar line before bursting into life as a Vaselines-style pop song which also hints at their other touring partners, The Dandy Warhols.
The album simply doesn't take its grip off the accelerator: 'Never Drive' sounds paradoxically like a great advert for speeding on a rainy night, while 'You Don't Listen' sounds like 'Disintegration' era Cure had their rider contained too much white bread and black coffee.
When things do mellow out on closer 'Other Things', we're carried away by the calming purr of Alex Gehring, whose feminine assurance offers a wing to hide under as the drizzle patters down up above.
This is simply a great album; full of teenage kicks, effortlessly electric energy and soulful sci fi. What's more, that band name 'aint bad either...