Paul Jacobs - Pictures, Movies and Apartments

The Guardian 80

(Stolen Body Records)

Pictures, Movies and Apartments offers the single most exciting opening to any album this year. The Image (Pictures) begins with kick drum, a single-note bassline and squalls of feedback, before going into a monstrously in-the-red five-chord riff, over which Jacobs howls who-knows-what. It’s the very essence of garage punk: something so primal you suspect the Sonics might have rejected it for being a little unsophisticated. Jacobs, from Canada, has – in common with so many modern garage rock artists – a bafflingly lengthy discography, full of the same kind of stuff. He’s not a one-note artist, though: he manages two or three. Born in a Zoo is just as fuzzed-up, but manages a sunshine psychedelia hook; the title track is bouncy lo-fi pop. Throughout, there are hooks and melodies – the album positively drips with them – but it’s combined with a singleminded wildness that’s desperately exciting. Pictures, Movies and Apartments might be the best garage punk record of the year.