The Goods, Makin’ the Sound

The Goods claim to be “post-grunge,” and I’ll be damned if Makin’ the Sound isn’t all that far off. There’s the sound, sure — the band resembles its grunge-y forebears in that the band members seem preoccupied with taking pretty melodies and dragging ’em through the mud(honey?) ’til they sound dirty as hell, with a coating of rust and feedback you could cut with a knife. There’s some Nirvana here, some Pearl Jam classic rock-ism there, and a little bit of the desperate hysteria the Afghan Whigs used to channel back before they became crooners, among other things.

It’s the guitars that really make this disc for me, I have to say — they’re loud and abrasive in the best possible way, with a loose, raw-sloppy feel that makes me think of the Grifters and Sonic Youth. Guitarists Jesse Flores and Trevor Wehrle scratch and scrape in tandem across the surface of each and every song, overloading the headphones with so much honest-to-God sonic force that it makes Wolfmother sound like a bunch of pussies. Then on “Unzip Myself,” bassist Alton Hawthorne outs himself as the band’s secret weapon, taking his grimy, dark, distorted bass and nailing it to the floor as the essential underpinning of the song while the guitars literally dance along over the top.

This is a gritty, dirty, don’t-give-a-fuck kind of rock that’s probably most at home on a stage in some hazy, beer-soaked dive where there’s as much Fugazi and Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the juke as there is the Stones or Elvis. The songs stagger and lurch from time to time, like a drunk trying to make it down the stairs without spilling his drink, but there’s also a hint of OK Go’s smart-assed songwriting sense and bumping rhythms. Call it grunge, or “post-grunge,” whatever you want; any way you look at it, the Goods ride the line between rock swagger and indie storm-of-noise, and they do it with style.