Artist: Dan Sartain
Album: Dan Sartain vs. The Serpientes
Label: Swami
Tracks: 14
Length: 36:57
Review by: Mike “.........” Leech

I’ve never understood why some bands purposely make their albums sound like butt. I mean, we’ve got the cheap and efficient technology thing going right now. Why use all that state of the art production equipment to make your music sound like it was recorded 40 years ago? Don’t get me wrong... trashy production can sometimes give songs a nice, edgy tone, but nine times out of ten the music would just sound a lot better if it sounded a lot better (wait, uhh... yah, that‘s right.).

Such is the case with Dan Sartain vs. The Serpientes. It’s obvious that Mr. Sartain set out to revisit the punky garage-rock sounds of decades-old artists like Jonathan Richman, The Yardbirds and Iggy Pop, but if this album didn’t happen to form in the midst of the present garage-rock revival movement, there is no way it would be receiving the rave reviews that it has. Sorry Dan, but the truth sometimes hurts.

Not that this album has absolutely nothing going for it. It can actually be pretty fun to listen to at times. A good portion of the songs sound like they could have been seamlessly inserted into the soundtrack for Pulp Fiction. And a few bare-bones and bouncy rock songs like “P.C.B. 98” and “Walk Among the Cobras, Pt. 1” might get trapped replaying in your head for quite a while.

And then there are tracks like the Hank Williams-style “Place to Call My Home” and the overblown, bluesy “Romance” that almost convince you of Sartain’s accolades having at least a little merit. Soon enough however, the hollow novelty of Dan Sartain vs. The Serpientes will wear off, and it won’t be before the next garage-rock revival wave sweeps the nation that you’ll have any desire to hear it again.