Golden Triangle – Double Jointer (2010) [Hardly Art] // Grade: B

There are some bands you just know have a great live show based on their album. Co-female fronted now-Brooklyn (previously Memphis) band Golden Triangle follow up last year’s self-titled EP with their debut, a powerful blast of 11 short tracks of art punk vocals, psych jangles, reverb and tons of tambourine. Double Jointer is best listened to loud and one can only assume, better listened to live.

“Cinco De Mayo” may not have been the strongest choice to kick off Double Jointer. The rushed garage instrumentation and terse shouts lack the personality of the tracks that follow. The album’s shortest selection is soon forgotten, giving way to “Blood And Arrow”, a more appropriate introduction to the band. Vashti Windish and Carly Rabalais voices mingle with the same post-punk influenced flatness that I loved so much in Creme Blush‘s short career. Their intertwined voices continue in a similar style across Double Jointer, droning outward expansively with the occasional veer into upbeat shouts that would make Corin Tucker proud.

Double Jointer‘s instrumentation takes 60′s psych and drops a boulder on it. The sludgy bass of “Rollercoaster” is complemented by a frenzied, reverb-doused, tandem guitar and drum cadence. The album’s loudest moments act as it’s strongest. The heavier the instrumentation gets, the better Windish and Rabalais vocals sound.

Double Jointer could stand with a bit more experimentation from all members, but it’s a solid debut that references many genres and combines them all into something that Golden Triangle can proudly call their own.

- Scrooge McFuck