Quitter

(Tortuga)
by Brian Varney

Boston, like all fertile music scenes, would appear to be rather an incestuous one. Quitter features three members of Roadsaw and an ex-member of Milligram, two of the finer bands to emerge from the area in recent times. Are they as good as Roadsaw, you ask? Cuz if they are, you need this rightfugginnow, right? Well, that’s actually kind of a tough question. To the members’ credit, this doesn’t really sound at all like Roadsaw. The press sheet mentions the Crüe and G’N’R, but this really ain’t as glammy as all that. What they do have in common with those two bands, if anything, is the ability to construct a catchy song and launch the friggin’ thing into the stratosphere. “Black Box” is catchy as shit, poppy and memorable but also unmistakably ROCK. And imagine my surprise at lead throat Hari Hassin (the drummer in Roadsaw), whose pipes are at least the equal of Craig Riggs’ (Roadsaw vocalist and Quitter drummer – confused yet?). He can (and does) go from a Prince-esque falsetto to a gritty, whiskey-parched soulful roar.

Everything on here’s pretty much aces in my book, though I am especially partial to the aforementioned “Black Box” and “Blind,” a keyboard-drenched, completely unironic ballad that climaxes with some “Baby, I’m-on-my-knees” pleading and is saturated with the sort of melancholy that brings to mind a favorable comparison with Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies.

A couple of people from the area have complained that these guys are on an asshole rock star trip, but after playing this a few dozen times (the thing’s only 23 minutes long, unfortunately), I can’t see how you could blame ’em. Fuck that, they ARE rock stars. It’s just that nobody knows it yet.
(PO Box 15608 Boston, MA 02215)