The Makers, Everybody Rise!

Y’know, I know that Washington rockers The Makers left any pretense of “punk” behind back in ’98, but since I haven’t had all that much exposure to the post-Hunger version of the band, it’s taken me a long time to adjust somewhat to their swerve into full-on glam rock. With Everybody Rise!, though, I’m finally there — I get it now, at last, and I understand that these guys are dead serious about this.

There’s no irony here, not even a hint, and that’s pretty rare in this age of sarcastic, ironic, retro-trendy hipsterism. Much as I love The White Stripes or The Darkness or Andrew W.K., I still get this weird feeling like they’re laughing behind their hands, amazed that all us listeners actually buy the act. The Makers, on the other hand, sound like they’re doing exactly what they love — channeling Motown and the Mods through T.Rex and David Bowie — and that’s pretty darn entertaining.

“Good as Gold” is the highlight here, a sweet concatenation of ’50s pop with mid-’80s New Romanticism (and a teeny-tiny nod to Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” to boot) that has one of the most yell-able choruses I’ve heard lately. The band shines on “Run With Me Tonight,” as well, turning down and throwing a little McCartney jauntiness into a come-get-lost-with-me love song (the “ba-ba-ba”‘s near the end are a nice touch), and gets dirty with lead-off track “Matter of Degrees,” which wouldn’t sound out of place as a long-lost Hanoi Rocks bootleg and which practically demands to be cranked up to ear-damaging volume.

The album lags a bit after the halfway mark, but even there the band throws out odes to Motown and ’60s pop like “It Takes a Mighty Heart” and “The Story of You and I,” respectively, as well as closer “Promises for Tomorrow,” which is grand and sweeping like Ziggy Stardust at his best. The only tracks I find myself skipping are the pseudo-creepy “Sex Is Evil (When Love Is Dead)” (guys, c’mon — you don’t need to mine the hearse schtick any longer…) and “Ordinary Human Love,” which just isn’t all that memorable a track. But hey, if you can shriek about being a “tiger of the night” and not sound like a complete idiot, who gives a shit if you don’t hit the mark with every single song?