Loadsa noise circling about this debut vinyl release from Portland's Shop Regulars and understandably so. The vision of Matt Radosevich and brought to life by a rotating cast of musicians, SR have been kicking around for over half a decade and as many tapes, but they really make it count now they're finally committed to record. Had to double-take on the band's locale, for this is decidedly New York sounding, and a very specific era of New York at that - if this were 20 years back, you'd likely already caught word of them via a Julian Casablancas co-sign and a Rough Trade deal. Don't read that as faint praise (and don't assume you'll be hearing this on the radio anytime soon, more's the pity). Shop Regulars are art damaged and lo-fi busted as Swell Maps, and they do it with true style and conviction, a bluesy reconfiguration of MES' three R's rules of rock n roll - REPETITION REPETITION REPETITION - with a street-smarts cool vocal that channels that Reed into Verlaine into (and yes, that name again) Casablancas lineage. Of course, this isn't 20 years ago, it's Portland and not the East Village and we're talking about a self-release in an edition of 200, so something has to be awry and it comes to a head in the brilliantly committed 11 minute long 'Emerson Run Down', Radosevich conjuring a Can by the way of The Magic Band fantasy I'd gladly hear run through a second 11 minute stretch. A better comparison, then, might be Royal Trux, outliers in thrall to the ghosts of rock n roll, reassembling it in their own image. Radosevich seems born of the same desire.
