Fake Can Be Just As Good (2023 Reissue)

It seems like New York trio Blonde Redhead have been dogged with Sonic Youth comparisons since the day they formed years ago, taking their name from an old song by No New York faves DNA. Such yakking only grew louder when the group, then a quartet, signed with Steve Shelley's Smells Like label in 1994 for a pair of LPs, and then let the Sonic Youth drummer produce them. Three years down the road, it's a resemblance still firmly in place on Fake Can Be Just as Good, despite the group employing producer John Goodmanson and switching labels to Chicago's venerable, powerful Touch & Go. Improving with each release, the solid, crashing duo of guitarists (and alternating singers) Kazu Makino and Amedeo Pace may borrow an ethic, an anti-pop stance, and atonal tension that's super-familiar, but the clean sound, direct attack, and straightforward, tense delivery are all their own.

Released: May 2023
Cat: TG169LP
Label: Touch and Go Records

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Tracklist

1. Kazuality
2. Symphony of Treble
3. Water
4. Ego Maniac Kid
5. Bipolar
6. Pier Paolo
7. Oh James
8. Futurism vs. Passéism