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GLUECIFER “Same Drug, New High”
GLUECIFER “Same Drug, New High”
By: Lord Randall
GLUECIFER stood loud ‘n’ proud from its formation in mid-‘90s Oslo, its not-quite-sleaze but definitely unclean take on unadorned “don’t call it garage” rock putting it on equal footing with BACKYARD BABIES and THE HELLACOPTERS, and far above the likes of BAD WIZARD and THE WITCHES when it came to laying down the law of rock. Disbanding roughly ten years in, vocalist Biff Malibu, guitarists Captain Poon and Raldo Useless grabbed Danny Young, threw him behind the kit again, and kidnapped “new” bassist Peter Larsson to tour over the past nine years. And now, just under a decade after that, “Same Drug, New High” brings GLUECIFER back to the recorded world.
Young’s drums waste no time kicking opener “The Idiot” into high gear, wailing, flanged guitars and Malibu’s weathered rasp sounding like they’ve been gone for months, not years. The title track blends elements of THIN LIZZY with Sunset Strip bravado and blitzkrieg circa 1987. Second-tier Hollywood Babylon at its finest is what we have here, and when I say “second-tier”, I’m not downgrading the quality at all. I’ve gone through a renaissance of late, revisiting and tracking down records/bands that never made it into heavy MTV rotation during those times; your ROCK CITY ANGELS, your JUNKYARDs. And what I’m remembering is that some of the most kickass bands were the ones in the shadowy dive bars instead of the arenas. These were – and GLUECIFER is – the music from, of and for the gutters. “Armadas” is a battle cry, a statement of intent, Larsson’s bass positively filthy, buzzsaw guitars just shy of metallic, and leading into the middle-of-the-road rock of “I’m Ready”.
“Pharmacity” is a hungover pre-dawn walk through the stench and clutter of the night before, stumbling over trash and trashed bodies, red-eyed alleyway skeletons, while “1996” relives the glory days of the band’s formation, the line “Got myself a pager and a landline phone” possibly needing translation for generations Y and later. After a slightly polished “Made In The Morning”,a punk-tinged “Mind Control” finds Biff conjuring Iggy Pop in a lower delivery during the verses before returning to his familiar snarl.
“On The Wire” puts a cap on “Same Drug, New High”, and I’ll say this. I don’t believe we’d have the same album if the GLUECIFER had jumped back into the studio just after reforming. What we have here – instead, and the better for it – is a band that’s spent nearly ten years honing its chops, becoming a better band both live and on album than they may have ever been.
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