“Last House” is the third album from Sacramento’s Th’ Losin Streaks. Recorded in their backyard at Louder Studios in Grass Valley, California, with Tim Green (Nation of Ulysses, Fucking Champs) in the control room. Green also leant a hand on some finely placed keys as did Anton Barbeau – a friend of the band since their inception.
A proper band, with members – Tim Foster, Stan Tindall, Mike Farrell, and Brian Machado – co-contributing to the songwriting, as well as The Weeds classic ‘It’s Your Time’ making its way onto the record. they even got Bay Area legend Al Sobrente to shoot the cover picture. It’s groovy garage rock baby from the opening hoot of ‘I Mean You’ through the reverb hack and slash of the cover It is authentic and really well presented. It might be 2024 but sometimes you need the authentic analogue reverb and warmth to pull this Garage Rock n Roll off.
When asked the band said ‘Last House’ was about shaking it til you make it. It’s about EKO, Silvertone and Supro, Vox (Super Continental), and the Hohner Marine Band. It’s about 2” tape. It’s about the plague, and politics, and war or the hands of time. It’s about the ice cream man after the apocalypse. It’s a trans-world punk rave-up. It’s about Link Wray, The Sonics, and the Downliners Sect. It’s about The Rolling Stones covering Sam Cooke. That pretty much sums up exactly what they deliver, they absolutely nail it. For some Chelsea boot winkle pickin’ Rickenbacker riffin, they just get it and pull it off.
‘Last House On The Block’ is a super cool laid-back tambourine shakin slice of groovy time and it makes me smile when I hear it done so well. These cats are totally invested and you can feel it as much as you can hear it on tracks like ‘The Slink’ Man, this is oozing authenticity, and it’s an instrumental and do I need to remind you what I think of songs with no vocals? (what’s happening to me?)
you certainly get a lot of bang for your buck on this one with a full fifteen tracks squeezed into the grooves on this record. ‘Cake And Ice Cream Too’ is my pick of the pops with its cool lyrics and rhythm jerking back and forth before its sugar-sweet chorus and wild guitar lick. ‘Rue de Montrail’ is one winkle picker in the Cavern of the 60s whilst the other is Stradlin the early 76 snot of punk in the 100 club or roxy but it pulls you all over the place with that dirty honkin’ harmonica stealing the show from the guitar riff – excellent stuff.
There is time to chill with some good time acoustic strumming on ‘For A While’ easing you out of this time-warping record. With just ‘Mangalore’ to pull off into the sunset with the soft top down and head for the beach it is time to crack open another beer as the sun goes down – adios baby its rock n roll and I like it – a lot!
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Author: Dom Daley
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