Whisper it sort of quietly, but over the last decade one of White Denim’s unspoken challenges has been bettering their stellar debut album, 2008’s Workout Holiday.
A mass of feverish, zig-zagging guitar chops finessed until they were almost skin tight, on it the Texan collective reframed the sounds of garage and old school r&b into something the new century could live with, in the process creating a reputation for crafty execution almost any band would’ve been proud of.
It’s to their huge credit then that a) this has never felt like the creative millstone it could’ve done, and b) regardless they’ve enthusiastically spent most of their time since making spontaneous and self-pleasing music with little regard for the demands of commerciality.
Now essentially a duo of James Petralli and Steve Terebecki and whoever else they feel like working with, Side Effects is their eighth album and follows on from the 2018 release of Performance, the latter a frequently cosmic dalliance in big tent psychedelics which offered a lot but demanded more of the listener too. Release wise it’s not much of a gap between drinks, but this time the focus is in staying truer to the band’s off-the-cuff stage persona, the material being assembled from demo’s Petralli had stashed in his car.
Is this a journey back in time then? Initially the answer’s yes. Opener Small Talk (Feeling Control) certainly captures the band’s almost manic early energy and even contains lyrics conceived in their formative days, but the rest of Side Effects is a more involved and eclectic trip around all six or seven of their eccentric multiverses.
Inevitably, the listener here leaves with an open mind even if they arrived with a closed one; Shanalala is a funk-dosed, locked in groove that leans on the St. Vitus disco of Talking Heads, while Hallelujah Strike Gold staples a blues riff onto a lysergic vocal and capers like a pre-galactic Pink Floyd. The grooves were never going to stop there either, as Side Effects reveals an instrumental core provided by the demi-Bluegrass of Out Of Doors, followed by Reversed Mirror’s undulating, Old Grey Whistle test jam, both satisfying hands played with typical aplomb.
Long term fans will know that this is White Denim’s world of course and we’re just living in it. The clincher for the rest of us is the sprawling NY Money which consists of seven minutes of motorik beat, but spiralling all around it are celestial melodies and a hazy sunshine ambience inspired by the motion of sometime drinking buddies The War On Drugs.
Back down here the notion might cross the listener’s mind to start weighing up comparisons between these songs and anything else in the band’s cannon, as if Petralli and co. have ever made any attempt to reach an understanding with the confines of their past.
Ultimately, the verdict is that Side Effects is a fine addition to a fascinating story, a tale which has had a definite beginning but as yet no apparent middle or end.
