White Denim - Fits

White Denim are an unclassifiable, musical entity out of Austin, Texas. Their recent album Fits was released on Tuesday. This is an awesome band that everybody should be checking out. This album alone encompasses everything from folk, to filthy raw beats and sounds to 60’s style psychedelic rock, to the acoustic love ballad.

Fits starts off with a song called ‘Radio Milk How Can You Stand It.’ This piece is a power packed high energy song that feels a lot like Geezer Butler and Frank Zappa playing in a punk band. It has a strong driving bass, loud drums and some vocals that seem to just be asking ‘how can you stand it?’
‘All Consolation’ carries the same garage vibe and repetitive vocals as it’s predecessor but feels a bit more like it came out of a time machine. You can already tell White Denim have a thing for a sick, driving rhythm section. The song fades out on a strange drum solo at the end.
‘Say What You Want’ is a pretty standard rock tune to start, but alas, deception. The band breaks out into an instrumental jam that is accompanied by either a sitar, or someone who can make their guitar sound like a sitar.
‘El Hard Attack DCWYW’ blasts out of the ashes of the previous song, and is the most erratic one yet with its all over instrumentals. As well as erratic, it’s exotic. There are some seemingly Spanish lyrics shouted in the first break, going back to English in the second.
‘I Start To Run’ would be a Primus song if it didn’t know any better. The bass is thumping and technical at times, leading the pack while the guitar inserts little bits of flavor over the intense funky jam. The song goes out with some harmonized vocals and eventually some strange guitar part that leads into ‘Sex Prayer.’
‘Sex Prayer’ reaches back into the same time machine ‘All Consolation’ came out of. The song has a really psychedelic feel, and is totally instrumental. The bass keeps it on the high end of the octave while the guitar chimes through even higher with an amalgamation of effects that make it sound like a keyboard. The song on the whole is very trance inducing and cuts off very abruptly at the end.
‘Mirrored and Reverse’ starts off with more trance inducing instrumentals and adds another layer of harmonizing vocals on top just to make it that much better. This is the last song on the album that sounds similar to its preceding songs. ‘Paint Yourself’ while still holding onto the garage feel, becomes more poppy and upbeat. This feels like a love song, with a fitting acoustic guitar, as well as some parts on an electric guitar. The drums are wholly different here than from the rest of the album, very refined and consistent.
‘I’d Have It Just The Way We Were’ continues in the smooth, poppy romantic song trend but regains the drumming that really sets this band apart. Strangely, the bass seems to be way down on the volume scale, or absent entirely. The intensity picks up for a bit at the end, but finishes on a nice, classy cymbal crash.
‘Everybody Somebody’ opens up with an amazing guitar run going until the lyrics pick up. The rhythm section is again rocking it, bass seemingly running through effects and the drummer seemingly playing with more than two arms. Towards the middle of the song there is a really clean, spot on guitar solo that builds off what it introduced us to in the opening riff.
‘Regina Holding Hands’ is a really beautiful ballad starting with acoustic guitar and those awesome, creepy, multi-track vocals that always add another dimension to a love song. It takes about halfway into the song for the rest of the band to start up, and the chorus kicks in moaning ‘Ohhhh Regina.’
‘Regina Holding Hands’ gives way to the last song on the album, ‘Syncn.’ ‘Syncn’ starts off light with some low guitar and muted cymbals eventually building and falling off with about a minute left to reveal an awesome jam with lots of ‘La La’ing that will surely get the crowd going when played live. Keep White Denim in mind for your next CD buy, this is a highly entertaining album that will not disappoint.