Totimoshi
milagrosa
Volcom

Well Fuck; this is good day at the mail box, a new Totimoshi rec. and its not only “good” but upflow good. Their whole sound, approach, structure remains intact but a relaxed sway has infiltrated the band. Its moved from strangled screaming to articulating why they were so god damn cranked up while still letting some howling wind via throat and guitar punch the air. The chiming and ker chunka riffing is uplifting in the best sense of the ” you can beat me up but you can’t get me down” of the blues/be-bop/blue note continuum. Amazingly they take the James Brownian bridge to the (very) hard rock form now and again and boy it works great! It certainly helps that metal is not a four letter word to’m. Easy to step on ones collective dick trying this, luckily these guys tap the century old alt.hippie.punk.metal.beat creative force churning up from San Francisco’s weirdo + immigrant & shore leave! polyglot of culture- bringing energy and a wide eyed view contiguous with that city/mindset instead of a dull “this” plus “that” equals something that most marketing dept.s can (kinda) understand/demand. Remember when Nirvana and Sonic Youth “broke” and radio/MTV programmers just “couldn’t get it?”, but still had to play it ? I wish this had the chance to “not be got”, in the same way. It’s got the same familiarity/newness whoosh I swear to the Gods.

Look “forever in bone”,s acoustic pulse-folk blues coulda come from Arthur Lees pen while in Love or on that solo record where he covered Hendrix Ezy-Ryder and sounded like Randy Holdens funky brother. The first cut has a transcendent lift from the guitar riff, chorus and splashy drum work grinding up classic grunge and turning it into the fuel to thrive all while the wiff of Alice Coopers, “killer”, wafts up a couple tunes latter. “The Wisper”, drops into a acid rock/folk stomp bridging Bevis Frond’s remembrances of London’s UFO club in ’71 and those great sea shanty ballads Mettallica used to crank out when these folks were in Jr. High. If you want a great stoner rock anthem that coulda graced a Soundgarden lp I suggest “the seeing eye”. What more do you want?

Well a couple covers for shits ‘n’ grins, say The Gang of Fours, “anthrax”, Sonny Sharrocks ,” little rock” and Queens of the Stoneage, “born to hula”. I’ve seen’m in Ohio, I’ve seen’m in Oregon and I need to see this tour anywhere the car can get in a day because for all the “historical this’n’that” milagrosa taps todays main vein wonderfully.

The Who, Hendrix, Chrome, Hitting Birth, Bomb, ‘n’ Flipper probably lent’m DNA, The Mass, Torche, Jucifer, Rebreather, Lost Goat, Stinking Lizaveta and Alabama Thunder Pussy have hit stages with’m and Page Hamilton of Band of Susans/Helmet moved faders and hummed along. So there ya go. A good one.