Nixon’s Head marks 25 years of garage-pop independence with the release of Enemies List. Stuck on a station on the car radio, somewhere between AM and FM and from 1967 to 1973, the 11 new songs offer a darker, dare we say, bluesier side of the band. But this isn’t your Blueshammer fan’s blues, as the pounding intro by drummer Seth Baer and bassist Mike Frank on the lead-off track “Done Dealing” quickly indicates. Singer Andy Rosenau and lead guitarist Jim McMahon have their mojo workin’ on “Never Been Down,” but they’re no friend of the devil. From the concentrated epic guitar jam of “The Witness” (featuring organist Dorothy Haug and Photon Band’s Art DiFuria) to the slow burn of guitarist Jim Slade’s “Richmond,” the beat group-obsessed Nixon’s Head has inched into its personal 1969. The band’s trademark self-mockery and gentle self-loathing are intact on songs like “English Envy” and “Yesterday’s Party”―and they’re still having a rave-up on “Really Starting Something”―but Enemies List presents a heavier Nixon’s Head, man, the way they were meant to sound.
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