No, I hadn’t heard of this group, but they
are formed from the remnants of The Minutemen, specifically Mike Watt (bass)
and George Hurley (drums) after D Boon was killed in a car crash (a sad irony considering their last album was named for sensible driving). He was
replaced by Ed Crawford on guitars and vocals, and the sound of Firehose (or, as they style it, fIREHOSE) is
quite similar to that of Minutemen, the kind of Zappa-meets-REM mix of short
pieces that merge jangle guitar tunes with slightly offbeat drumming and guitar
phrases.
Although they’re built out of simple melodic
riffs, and quite often some squelchy slap basslines of the kind that used to
punctuate an episode of Seinfeld, the tracks are never content to stick to the expected,
instead bringing in strange jazzy intervals or sudden changes in time
signature. The end effect is to lull you into thinking that you’re getting some
easy listening, and then pull the rug from under you in an oddly compelling
fashion. There are a couple of short drum solo tracks – Let The Drummer Have
Some and ‘Nuf That Shit George, and a folksy tune Vestapol but the rest are the
kind of acid garage that the Minutemen did. Perhaps because this is the shorter
album, it felt more like one to revisit as once you get used to the unexpected
turn, the tunes are all pretty solid.
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