Slant 6 and Make-up, Euclid Tavern, Cleveland, OH, by Derek Hess, 1994
Featuring members of the Washington D.C. gem Autoclave, Slant 6 was a tuneful titan of punk’s third wave just as its label Dischord became home base to more “mature” post-punk outfits, such as its predecessor Fire Party. The group embodies a haunting reverse invasion of culture by delivering gutted rock ‘n’ roll as one-part homage to the bands it was reared on while making the retrofitted music feel genuine, disassembled, and filtered through new webs of experience. The stripped down, cutting “Babydoll” pops and punches, becoming agile, destructive, mad, and fixating at times. Slant 6 operate in svelte mode, reinforcing clear-cut formulas, similar to many garage punkers, but its transmits artful adaptations with spry surges, keen authenticity, and restless reclamation. Sometimes the tunage is vexing (“Retro Duck”) or bare-knuckled jazz-noise (“Inzombia”), but Slant 6 also offers up the choppy, primal, and perfectly quirky “Don’t You Ever” and swelling, upheaving “What Kind of Monster Are You?” In all, a power trio antidote to East Coast math rock. — site editor David Ensminger (originally published in Popmatters)
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