Sunday, January 24, 2010
A+E, Music, Reviews

Thomas Function

“IN THE VALLEY OF SICKNESS”  (FAT POSSUM)

Courtesy of Fat Possum Records

Thomas Function
w/Customers, Gold Ghosts
Wednesday, Jan. 27
8:30 p.m.
The EARL
$8
www.badearl.com

   Bob Dylan may have been stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues, but Alabama’s Thomas Function seems to be stuck inside of Huntsville with the Bob Dylan blues.

    This four-piece (there’s no one named Thomas or Function) takes Dylan’s basic garage/folk formula perfected during the “Highway 61 Revisited” years, adds a dollop of brash, Buzzcocks-style U.K. punk, slaps on those stomping Proclaimers singalong choruses that turn any event into a party, and slings out a dozen craggy tracks in under 40 minutes.

    Unlike many bands stuck in a garage-rock time warp, Thomas Function features a riveting and absolutely distinctive lead vocalist in John Macero. The guitarist-songwriter tears into songs with an adenoidal yelp somewhat akin to the Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano. On its follow-up to 2008’s impressive debut, the quartet shifts away from an American sound and plunges into snarling, snappy British punk-pop with ever-present organ and enough guitar twang to hint at their U.S., but not necessarily Southern, origins. 

     “Whenever we move our lips the words sound strange,” Macero sings on “Waverly,” one of the many tunes with lyrics obtuse enough to mean something to certain people, but maybe not you. Those who remember U.K. darlings the Only Ones will hear the similarity of Macero’s vocals to those of the underappreciated Peter Perrett.

    Despite its spot-the-influence qualities, Thomas Function’s music crackles with excitement, inspiration and the kind of tense, terse energy that explodes in an intimate rock club on a Wednesday night. 3 STARS—Hal Horowitz