Everybody's Boogie

Dommengang are a Brooklyn trio whose members play in Emil Amos' Holy Sons. Fronted by guitarist/vocalist (and former Castanet) Sig Wilson with Ancient Sky's Adam Bulgasem on drums and Brian Markham on bass and vocals, they make a glorious racket. This music has very familiar sources combined in excellent form: the roadhouse biker boogie of post-Woodstock Canned Heat, the early Texas grind of ZZ Top, late electric Delta Blues, the spiraling hard psych of Hawkwind, and the hypnotic rhythms and effects of rowdier Krautrock. While every track on this debut album is a jam, Dommengang, per se, do not — noodling improvisational excess is not their M.O. Only two of its ten cuts are over five minutes, and there are no extended guitar solos. Tunes kick off, get to the point, and resolve; they are all more powerful for their relative brevity. At the heart of everything lies the almighty riff. Check the opening title cut. As heavily reverbed guitar chords and single-line fragments line the intro, drums and bassline blast in with Motorik intensity a minute later. Bulgasem's pulsing, single-note bass throb allows Wilson to let the psych riffs fly, with volume and reverb pedals on stun until the chugging, full-on boogie vamp sets in. There are vocals but they're superfluous. "Hats Off to Magic" weds Slim Harpo to post-psych gristle with an ugly bassline and a guitar that sounds like it's played with a dirty razorblade. The track's production is strained through overblown distortion for three-and-a-half minutes, reinventing a vamp you've heard many times before. "Her Blues," though slower, is a winding, open, drone blues (à la Junior Kimbrough) with elastic, trippy effects in a sultry, spine-slipping trance groove. "Burning Off the Years" is initially fueled by a hyperkinetic, wrangling, single-chord strumming. Bulgasem answers with a churning, disruptive bassline that makes use of Jeff Beck's "Goin Down," while Delany adds locomotion syncopating on the bells of his symbols. The trio transforms it into a smoldering maelstrom that chaos threatens to claim. Only closer "Lost My Way" deviates from the form, using a slow blues to erect an immense spaciousness as shuffling drums and droning bass and guitars frame Wilson's lonely, tripped-out vocal. Ultimately, Everybody's Boogie is about feel and motion. Stomp and drift are inextricably entwined with Dommengang's psychedelic sonics, all roughly stitched into multi-hued, bluesy hard rock complete with edges and angles. When established styles are executed with this much inspiration and commitment, who needs "new?" [Everybody's Boogie was also released on LP.]