Mooney Suzuki 'Sweats' electricity

By Nate Seltenrich

Add another name to the list of New York City bands that are going to save rock and roll. The Mooney Suzuki, who have been compared by music critics to the Who, Rolling Stones and Velvet Underground, have also recently been pitted against such current hot button rock saviors as the Hives, the Strokes and the Vines.

Name-dropping aside, the Mooney Suzuki are almost certainly on to something good. The modern music business is a sucker for bands who can revisit the past with style and skill, and that's just what the Mooney Suzuki are doing.

They know it, too. From the retro orange and white album art to the long-play style division of the 10 tracks on to two "sides," "Electric Sweat," the six year-old band's second full-length release, is not outwardly shy about resurrecting a past that rocked so much harder.

Their eager image is no turn-off, however, as their music more than follows suit.

From rough and tough garage-rock guitars to surf and punk rock drums to the very cool occasional use of an old-school rock organ, "Electric Sweat" showcases a band that knows what it wants and knows how to get it.

The album even features two swinging high-energy instrumentals - track seven, "Its Showtime Pt. II" and track 10, "Electrocuted Blues" - that are especially exciting in a peel-the-paint-off-the-walls, knock-your-socks-off kind of way.

Lead singer Sammy James Jr.'s lyrics also often yearn for a time when life was simpler. "In a young man's mind, there's a little room for music and the rest is girls," he sings in track two, "In a Young Mans Mind."

If the Mooney Suzuki can't bring back rock and roll, maybe no one can. Then again, if you ask them, they'll tell you it was never gone. A-