The Fleshtones:

Beachhead

(Yep Roc)

“Why does everybody want to bow at my feet/When I can’t make enough just to make ends meet?” is the question posed by vocalist Peter Zaremba on “I Want the Answers,” and it’s certainly a pertinent one. After all, it can’t be easy having amassed 16 albums as leader of garage rockers The Fleshtones— over nearly 30 years in semi-obscurity—while young upstarts like The White Stripes and The Mooney Suzuki steal all the critical and fan attention.

Part of the reason may lie in the Brooklyn quartet's insistence on generally maintaining a party atmosphere from the record’s start to finish. That couplet I just mentioned? That’s about as deep as the songwriting gets. Elsewhere, the band tackle levity in “Serious” (“Let's get serious/About not being serious/Serious/About nothing”) and aren't above a little shameless self-promotion (“Bigger and Better”). One of the most memorable tracks, “Pretty Pretty Pretty,” features Zaremba getting pulled over by a cop for running a red while checking out a foxy chick.

To be sure, Keith Streng’s guitar work is fine, the call-and-response backing vocals are fun, and Zaremba pulls off a decent Iggy imitation, but on the whole, the record seems to blur into an unmodulated sameness; this despite the fact that half the tracks were recorded in Detroit and half in North Carolina. The closing mid-tempo ballad, “Late September Moon” sounds like a lost Smithereens tune and allows a little variety to shine through, but it’s ultimately not enough.

www.fleshtones.org

5 Blips out of 10

By Matthew Christoffersen

8/2005