#1037 The Fabulous Wailers - The Fabulous Wailers

This right here's the sweet spot. Everything you love about garage rock revival of R&B raucousness (starting with say, The Sonics) and everything you love about the actual rip-roaring R&B of the 50's (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent) collided in some kinda space-time cusp in Seattle 1959. The Wailers' debut is as genuine and raging as the originals, with that do-it-harder-do-it-faster-fuckit-if-we're-doing-it-right aplomb and full-throated Link Wray rumble that you can only get by trucking it a couple years and half a country away.

You get the idea that these kids just really fucking love rock and roll, and they love it every way there is to love it, from the galloping instrumental opener, to the impossibly cool, jazzy 2nd track, to sax and piano Little Richard rollick of Dirty Robber, where vocals kick in for the first time and they're ragged and raw and you mentally drop back to the first couple of tracks and try to piece together what trajectory this thing's on.

It's a two part-greatness here. The actual songs, while sounding a bit samey by the end, are kicking, rocking, enthusiastic and terrific fun. But its the album that seals it. I'm reminded of Mellon Collie and Kid A: albums that start with a weird opener, double-down on that weirdness in the second track, and then get down to business on the 3rd. There's disorientation creating tension, and then a spot of relief, and then off you veer again and you don't know where these fools are taking you but you trust that it's gonna be interesting. That confidence and wildness is on display here, and remember that being unpredictable isn't something that any of the R&B gods, nor their revivalists, were especially strong at once you got past their opening salvo. But this keeps you guessing, just look at the slinky atmosphere of High Wall into the shitkicking handclap thrill of Wailin'. To take one of the greatest eras of rock and roll, pump it up, and twist it into a shape that touches on jazz, pre-surf, and punk-before-punk, and heave it into the world like a firebomb, it's a hell of a thing, and a fitting capstone tribute to the 50's 5/5