Black Moses

The fat, fuzzed-out bass lines, squealing fuzz-wah guitars and airtight beats sound like Curtis Mayfield jamming on Monster Magnet’s Spin Of God, in that uniquely foppish, British white-boy take on American black music that brought us the likes of the Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Small Faces. Sure, they can affect the American accent, but their darling little Britpop haircuts betray their English birth. It’s garage rock meets stoner rock meets psychedelic funk, with flecks of Cream, Kiss, the Black Crowes and even the Chambers Brothers thrown into the mix. Inflecting some songs with blues harmonica and freaked out sax, there are some unarguable nuggets of propulsive fuzzed-out gold, but it’s a hard standard to maintain and the second half falters at times. On the quarter of the tracks that they it get, they get it, but when they miss, it’s all the more frustrating. And they also miss about a quarter of the time, which isn’t the worst odds, if you’re a spin-doctor at the Pentagon.