A fixture on the Paisley Underground scene of the early 80s, this band got the quasi-quintessence of the Velvet Underground. Since they’d rather risk attitude than sound, though, the Dream Syndicate fail for lack of fire, and the record campaigns for somebody else’s wider triumph: The nettle-drones are as affected as the Lou Reed-ing of the singer. Do you judge such parochialism on the V.U.’s terms alone? That titanic band was all about character, nuance, and the (urban) cult of personality — a confluent world-view. The Dream Syndicate never gain past redundancy (if they did, would they be even half as interesting?); and, at their best, they forge a kind of overtaxed recall out of mere textural tendencies, which they come to secondhand. More P.U. than V.U., there’s just no gall to the groove.
Joe Keaton
Weird tales for the late crowd. And riffs on pop culture.
