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Imaginary Enemy
Caulk
One Ton Records
The only thing worse than an average band is an average band that thinks it’s good and/or is popular. The average bands that can’t fill a club on a Saturday aren’t much of a concern; they’ll never rise above the opening slot on a “Three Bands for Three Bucks” bill at Trees before splitting up. It’s the average bands with a loyal following–not counting friends and family–that are more of a threat; they’re downright delusional. Take Caulk, for example: One Ton impresario Aden Holt’s raucous outfit isn’t the worst group in Dallas (at least, not as long as Hellafied Funk Crew continues to tee it up). But let’s be honest–one would hope that once the kids remove Caulk’s second album, 1995’s Love American Style, from their disc changers, they will issue a heartfelt apology to their stereos.
The group has proven over the course of two albums–1994’s Learn To Take and Love–that it can rock; unfortunately, most of the time the band’s rock has no roll, and even less of the time does it have a point. Yet even as Dallas loses great bands such as Funland and UFOFU, Caulk has not only endured, but it has been successful enough to allow One Ton to release records by the likes of Slow Roosevelt. Do you see the problem?
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Caulk’s latest disc is more of the same. Once again, Holt (or “Dean Brodie,” as he refers to himself in the liner notes) is going on and on about something–“I’ve taken everything but nothing clears my head/No lucky key ring to put my finger in,” from “Pretty Penny”–while the rest of the band cranks out standard, riff-by-the-numbers heavy rock. When songs such as the title track and “New Disguise” begin to delve into more melodic territory, they are beaten back into submission by a wave of skronky guitar and gut-pummeling bass. Most of the time, listening to Imaginary Enemy is like being married to Ike Turner: It beats the crap out of you, makes nice for a little while, then resumes beating the hell out of you.
The album’s highlight (yes, there is one) comes, fittingly, on a song that Caulk didn’t even write: The band’s cover of the Sugarcubes’ “Motorcrash” is great precisely because it doesn’t sound like anything the band has ever done. The bass line is bouncy, the guitars are downright jangly, and Holt actually sings for a change. It feels strangely appropriate hearing Holt repeating words penned by Bjsrk, because no one ever knows what in the hell she’s talking about either. The song’s actually almost too good, because the rest of the album seems that much more unexceptional in comparison. Most of the kids who voted One Ton “Record Label of the Year” in the 1997 Dallas Observer Music Awards will own Imaginary Enemy before this review even hits the streets, but that doesn’t make it right.
–Zac Crain
