Shotgun Monday - Read Compare Adjust

The opening riff of Read Compare Adjustreminds me of Iggy Pop’s Search and Destroy album. But that’s where the similarity ends. The closest comparison that can be made is to bands like Fugazi and Helmet. There is a “post-punk” feel to the album, a sort of under-produced, raw feeling. Containing members of Kill Sadie, and Red Light Go, Shotgun Monday has the feel of a highschool band still under development. The band’s lineup is a straight-forward guitar, bass, drums, half-screamed, off-key vocals. The band never finds its feet on this freshman album. Although some of the guitar lines are occasionally harmonic, they are of the power-chord and Modest-Mouse lead-guitar variety. The drums are of the keeping-tempo variety, and the lyrics, themselves, are sometimes questionable, reminding me of the angsty days I spent in punk-rock clubs, smoking stolen cigarettes: “I tried to carve a bust of you out of rotten wood and your face just fell apart balancing on bayonets,” or: “wait for me to sit now proceed peel your flesh off let the skin hit the floor unleash those immaculate organs,” or: “wash your hands wash your arms wash your pussy.” I wanted to like Read Compare Adjust, I really did. I read, I compared, and I just couldn’t adjust. [www.shotgunmonday.com]