The Four Corners

Say You’re a Scream (Kindercore)
by Jon Sarre

This nicey-nice mix of Southern-fried garage blues, sing-song female vox, and the odd get-down-on-yer-knees-and-worship-at-the-alter-of-fuzz moment takes The Four Corners outta the box I woulda stuck ’em in when I read that the singer runs and all-vegan bakery (doubtlessly a “collective”) and the bass player also plays in The Ladybug Transistor (definitely a “collective”). Why? Hell, they know what to do rockwise like they’re the early Stones backing Marianne Faithful or sumptin’ closely akin to that. They drop hints that harken way back like “Long Tall Shorty” bein’ somethin’ The Kinks had a go at and it still bein’ Slim Harpo’s “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” (or “the Sesame Street Theme”) re-writ and the riff which crops up on “The Pastel Queen” is one of Richard Berry’s (the guy who wrote “Louie, Louie”) – “Have Love, Will Travel,” as filtered thru the Sonics (who popularized the song as much as anyone). Similarly, “Stand Up” (which is a cover of something else) sounds like something the Sonics woulda thought up had they been around in the mid-’80s instead of the mid-’60s. “Dinosaurs in Brooklyn” is the Shaggs with competence and more equipment, which is to say artlessly arty, or somethin’ like that. Their Stooges cover (“No Fun”) is played slower than the original, which reverses the usual trend to speed up the original, so I guess that’s interesting, as is the fact that the second half of the CD is the first half, but “in stereo” – a bonus for all you audiophiles cuz there’s more “sounds.”
(PO Box 461 Athens, GA 30603)