Retail Simps - Strike Gold Strike Back Strike Out (Total Punk Records)

Garage music. A constant source of life blood pumping through the musical heart of this fine city going back to The Haunted in the 60’s, The Gruesomes and The Nils in the 80’s, Tricky Woo in the 90’s, The Sexareenos and Les Breastfeeders through the 00’s just to name a few. In 2024, amidst a seemingly endless display of drum machines, laptops, electronics and boutique haircuts, The Retail Simps know a thing. or two about keeping it real. It would appear they have an aversion for any modern day trickery or production, resulting in a 16 song cycle as timeless as flipping the bird.

First they gave us 2022’s Reverberant Scratch: 9 Shots In The Dark… Jab. Then came 2023’s Live On Cool Street …Left cut. What follows is STRiKE GOLD / STRIKE BACK/ STRIKE OUT… the uppercut or in this case, the third statement by MTL’s raw as fuck purveyors of old school garage music, The (Tha/Thine/Thee) Retail Simps.

For those unfamiliar with The Retail Simps, the band got you covered and come in flexing out of the gate with the track Retail Simp$… a gutter end of the garage declaration of intent. “Moonshine wine and dine. Serpentine. Retail sluts, retail swine… get a glimpse… The Simps”.

The Simps are loose as a goose and the track plays out like Jon Spencer’s neglected younger brother who’s been denied Matador’s Records recording budget. It’s a great ice breaker to slip into the band’s 16 songs in 38 minutes runtime. It’s not all as giddy-as-a-garage-party, Double Feature and Drum To March The Wind 2 matches a minimal bass riff over top scratchy guitar that slowly builds into an abstract soundscape. Even when The Simps are’t the noise of the party, they are the noise of the party…

I Was Watering A Plant edges closest to a ballad bordering on nursery rhyme. It’s a, dare I say, lovely outlier amongst the grittier propositions on Strike Gold Strike Back Strike Out. Even the gnarliest of meals requires an “amuse bouche” to cleanse the pallette.

On Us adds a sinister Byrds-ian jangle and some smoke and incense and fire into the into the mix, whereas Bug Life March 16th anchored to echoes of the Zombies in between seasons before exploding like a bottle rocket. Knotted Up will have you wearing a hole through the rug in no time, and would not have felt out of place on a Strange Boys album. A Hanger / A Coatrack rocks as hard as it is abstract.

In 2024, garage might not be bubbling at the surface as much as it has in past decades, but garage music is alive and well, The Retail Simps pushing every bonkers boundary, ensuring that their garage music is its own and from an honest place, nothing says this more than the sincere thank you to the lister at the end of the album. It’s an effective ending to the album, breaking the previous 37 minutes and 50 seconds of pure unabashed rock ‘n roll lunacy, like the kids used to make.

Thine Retail Simp’ Strike Gold Strike Back Strike Out is out now via Total Punk Records.