MONOSHOCK – “Lost Shock, Volume 1” and “Lost Shock, Volume 2” CD-Rs

There were multiple bent angles
to this early 90s SF Bay Area trio, but the one that seems to have pushed the
most posthumous buttons for folks is the heavy, blown-out, shit-fi psych side,
which posits (correctly) that Monoshock were easily of a par with multiple resin-fingered
forefathers as well as their then-peers Mainliner and High Rise.

The band also
occasionally trafficked in more “song”-like fuzzed/damaged punk rock, most in
evidence on their 45s and on the “Runnin’ Ape-Like From The Backwards Superman”
collection, but there are only mere whiffs of that stuff on these two new
archival CDs. One could ungenerously call these releases shoe-scraping; I
prefer to see them as onion-peeling, and those heads who ache for more of the
howling free-void blues that Monoshock sonically plumbed for about six years
will find much to damage their synapses with here, particularly outstanding long-form
instrumental scorchers like “It’s Not There” and “19^th Street
Shuffle”.

There are marginally recognizable covers stuffed into corners throughout
the two discs as well, from demigods and in-jokes as diverse as the Pink Faeries,
Von Lmo, Howard Werth, Lee Hazelwood, Black Clothes & Pointy Shoes and
Social Distortion. Monoshock left it all on the table, every time, and
obviously left anything that remained on the tapes that make up these two discs. (Silver Current; silvercurrentrecords.com) –
Jay