No Fish Shop Parking

It's a very English phrase, that album title (even though it's not really an album, more a collection of singles tracks), but Jacob's Mouse is as American-inspired if not more so than most from the U.K., and the band members do a good job with their influences on this great ten-song effort. Some blistering guitar parts confirm that like, say, Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr., the trio grew up on metal but, like those other bands, knew how to look beyond that to wider influences and approaches. The liner notes mention that an early version of the band did nothing but Status Quo covers once. However, such cuts as the slow but fierce "A Place to Go To," heavily reverbed riffs swirling around and then exploding, kick in a way the good-timey boogie rockers never quite had the strength to do (though there is a bit of cowbell fun in "Carfish" and "The Vase," a nice nod of allegiance to the past). There are some lost gems of fiery early-'90s indie scattered throughout No Fish Shop Parking, of which the standout has to be the brutally energetic "Twist." Reminiscent of everything from Sonic Youth and Big Black to Helmet and Hüsker Dü and back, it has a great, nagging guitar part that suddenly turns pretty and a rough, shoutalong chorus that's harsh and hopeful all at once. Compare this to the boring sludge that passed as commercial grunge in the wake of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and there's no contest. Many numbers are abrupt, punky thrashalongs that barely top three or even two minutes, but if those showcase sheer energy more than anything else, it's all still pretty tasty — and stuff like the rockabilly strut of "Caphony" and the glam/dub combination of "Ghetto Queen" makes it all the more so.