Daviess County Panthers – Je N’aime Pas Beaucoup Ma Gamelle – Review

Daviess County Panthers

Je N’aime Pas Beaucoup Ma Gamelle (Sonic Bubblegum)
by Nik Rainey

Tense. Tense like the quieter, pacing portions of Birthday Party or Slint records just itching to burst into madness. Tense like a free-jazz drummer on amphetamines after being told to stick to 4/4. Tense like a bomb squad in the Protestant section of Belfast on St. Patrtick’s Day. Tense like Steve Albini getting asked “So, what’s Gavin Rossdale really like?” one time too many. Tense like the halfway point between ninese and elevense. Tense like the Daviess County Panthers, local-kids-made-nervous with a firm, vein-popping grasp on the place where impending violence pervades the air, the heat rises, and everything seems poised for an explosion… which never comes. Even when the kick drum kicks harder and the guitar starts a-boilin’, it never quite spills over into the frenzy you’ve been conditioned to expect, leaving you infuriated but riveted, twitching in your chair to jump up, dance, smash someone,something… but forget it. Could be that the Chi-town Steve wall of sound has grown straitjacket-tight over the last year or two (though the boardsmanship of Tad’s Tom Zaluckyj – a man whose very name reeks of consonantal tension unrelieved by vowel movements – is just as engagingly oppressive), or just that Suzette Fontaine, Mike Hibarger, John Paananen and Chris Keene have a special knack for sustained unease. Either way, Je n’aime… has one of the better payoffs I’ve heard in this we-hid-a-song-an-hour-after-the-disc-was-s’posed-to-end era – ten minutes of silence followed by an untitled number where Fontaine, who had played coy throughout, finally lets out the scream we’d been waiting for. Yeah. (The album title, incidentally, roughly translates to “I do not like my waterbowl very much.” Apparently even Frog dogs aren’t exempt from the tension these guys bring on.)