Goat's Head Soup

Nashville genre-hoppers play fiendishly referential rock

Comments (0) By Bill Friskics-Warren Tuesday, Apr 25 2006

Ghostfinger's Richie Kirkpatrick can't decide whether he wants to be Mick making like Gram, Alice mugging like Iggy, or Dulli aping Prince. But that's a plus where his avidly referential trio's mélange of twang, pop-metal, and DMSR is concerned. As advertised by the title of their 2005 debut, These Colors Run, the 'Finger refuse to settle on one tone over another—or in Kirkpatrick's case, to settle down; the manic, mustachioed ringleader is all over the place and everywhere at once.

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Ghostfinger
These Colors Run
Set International

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"Content," for example, is anything but contented, jerking fiendishly from trash-can cabaret to hooligan 'stomp 'n' grind to pedal-steel promenade. "Love My Head," by contrast, is an impish pastiche of Rush and Queen, while in the devolutionary "Aminal Eye," Kirkpatrick interpolates Chuck D and Hal David and screams for ice cream. Two too many homages to "Far Away Eyes" make the record's mid-section drag, but "Rock," its next to last track, more than makes up for things. Hardly as monolithic as its title lets on, "Rock" segues, tongue in cheek, from a protracted proggy intro to a stadium-certified, and wholly earned, chorus of "We're gonna rock/We're gonna fuck/We're gonna rock rock rock rock, fuckin' rock."

Ghostfinger play the Trash Bar May 12.