But I know if I don't say what's on my mind right now I'll never get around to saying it, and as it happens I've managed to drag my moribund carcass down the stairs for the third time today, somebody throw me a party & crank up the Ja Rule/Metallica collabo: YEAAAAHHHH, WE DIIIID IIIIT ok where was I. Right right. Got a promo in the mail from Ottawa last week. The Senators have the most bitchin' logo in all sports and that includes whatever sorry-ass team you're gettin' ready to say has a better logo. Go to hell and shut up but first make me some tea, the Sens have the best logo. It is the best! No one can deny it. And now there's this record what I got from some people who, like the Senators, are in Ottawa. They are called BANDITAS if it was my band I would have called it LAS BANDITAS but then again I am a pedant. Almost wrote "peanut." Wait here while I stop giggling about that.

Ok I am back like a rebel makin' trouble! Banditas are a really good band with some of the best guitar solos I've heard on an indie rock record all year. It's a good year for indie rock guitar solos because I can off the top of my head name one other indie record with bitchin' solos. That record is Sleater-Kinney's The Woods and if you do not like that record then you do not like guitar solos, in which case go back to communist Russia or something, guitar solos are God's way of telling us He loves us very much and also that He invented sex, so we should not be miserable ingrates and hate on guitar solos all the time.

Banditas have guitar solos from right out there in Monoshock territory and if you know how highly I regard Monoshock's solos then you know I am not playing around! But I have one complaint about the Banditas record and it's a serious one. It's the distresed vocals. They are on every track. I understand the allure and appeal of the distressed vocal, but if you're gonna do that on every track well just don't. It winds up putting all the focus on the vocal effect. It's like the indie Antares Autotune. It has the same effect: everything else in the song drowns under the waves of affect/effect. I apologize for the homonym slash thing in the preceding sentence. I know this is not postmodern crit-theory class and I should know better.

If I was in Banditas right now I would be saying "why is this fucken guy riding us on the vocals so hard!" but to Banditas I must say "because these guitar solos, for example the mega-reverbed one on the song called 'San Francisco,' they are so awesome that I want to crack my skull open and offer my brains to the Great Lumbering Risen God of the Mud-Bog, that is how awesome they are!" and so the vocal thing, I think to myself - Banditas you are onto something special, do not hide your light beneath a bushel but let it shine before men and the darkness will understand it not! Also, they cover a Lync song, only a man with a heart of stone could hate on a band that covers a Lync song. A man with a heart of stone! I have to admit if I'm being fair that the vocal distress works pretty well in both "San Francisco" and in "Post No Bills." John Vanderslice would probably wanna tell me that it's not the vocal distress that's the problem, it's the amount of distress and the mixing and panning and stuff but news flash Mr Tech Head all that stufff to normal ppl = THE EFFECT don't you hear me talkin'.

Ok once we use an abbreviation like "ppl" you know it's time to catch the last train for the coast. Banditas are pretty excellent and their songs are really good and I wish I could hear the singer's voice better, that's what I had to say. Took me a while didn't it! I shall now eat soup.