The new album from Permanent Collection, Nothing Good is Normal, made me think of numerous SST bands, including Saint Vitus. It also rocked my world when I wasn't expecting it to be rocked. This, the first release from Jason Hendardy as Permanent Collection in seven years, dropped on Strangeway Studio yesterday, and it's one of this week's better surprises.
"A Way" roars like a beast, as does "Blurring the Lines", a number in debt to stuff like "Over the Edge" by The Wipers. Elsewhere, "West Coast Fever" seems a neat updating of both Tad and Loop, no mean feat that, while "Nothing Else", and the superb "In the End" speed up the tempo to deliver real punchy rock-and-roll. Simultaneously sounding like pre-Geffen Nirvana and The Jesus & Mary Chain circa "In a Hole", Permanent Collection crank up and drive into the heart of the sun.
Lots of this record sounds like it could have been made in 1989 and I mean that as the biggest compliment, not a suggestion that the style is dated. This is music that recalls that of an age when risks could be taken in alternative music, and a embrace of heavy riffs and volume, volume, volume was something to be proud of. Jason Hendardy understands exactly how to find a good hook, and use it to deliver pummeling and yet exhilarating music.
Nothing Good is Normal is out now via Strangeway Studio.
More details on Permanent Collection via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Permanent Collection]