Brian Jonestown Massacre - Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

Indie/Psychedelic - Anyone who has seen the 2004 documentary DiG!, about Brian Jonestown Massacre and their love/hate relationship with rival band/namedroppers The Dandy Warhols, knows that BJM frontman Anton Newcombe Does. Not. Care. He does not care about making friends or fans. He he does not care for the politics and posturing of the music industry. He does not care what you, critics, or his (often former) bandmates think about his music, his life, his attitude or his haircut. That's why Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? boasts a blurry Jesus cover and three songs with the F-word in the title: all Newcombe cares about is rocking out, taking drugs, and reminding you that he doesn't care. Don't forget!

If Newcombe didn't have talent in proportion to his ego, Brian Jonestown Massacre would have been a non-event, barely a blip in the 7" bin, and Newcombe would be pursuing a career in... whatever he used to do. However, as he has established across double-digit-numbering years and records, he is an extremely gifted musician, songwriter, and cultural lightening rod. Newcombe makes no secret of his fondness for other music, borrowing words and sounds liberally from anything that catches his fancy. Like its namesake, ...Sgt. Pepper runs amok through the frontiers, both possible and actual, of rock, and is unclassifiable on the whole as anything besides "psychedelic." Psych-, glam-, kraut-, alt-, synth-, folk-, classic-, and a host of other "rock" lead-ins are applicable to various points of the disc, but Newcombe's main influences here are the two British Invasions: the "swinging" sound of 60s London, and the 80s/90s pop wave that included the shoegaze of Creation Records and Factory Records' dance-oriented "Madchester" sound. BJM love to toss it up, but these dominant sounds keep the rest from ever straying beyond the boundaries of cohesion and as a result, the album plays like a good run on the jukebox of a hip pub. Pour a beer and put it on.

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Brian Jonestown Massacre - Our Time (From Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?)