Okay, here, I’ll admit my ignorance. My relationship with the Rolling Stones started all backwards in the ‘80s and their disco era and it’s taken many a punk cover of their songs for me to reel back from deep-seeded revulsion. It doesn’t help matters any that they get cartoon ants in commercials to play along to their songs to sell soda pop. However, by slowly going back to where the Stones started, I can finally see why people go ga ga over ‘em. What in the fuck does this have to do with the Reigning Sound? Quite simply, there’s a bit more than a passing blush with this 7” and “Under My Thumb”-era Stones (when I first heard that song, I though it was a Social Distortion original. Fuck, I was thirteen.). And if this had been, say, the first Rolling Stones tracks I’d ever heard, I’d be floored. Reigning Sound have a rich, lush, done-all-the-thinking-for-you songs that pull in a cavalcade of instruments while none of it sounds excessive. Wholly pleased. Big, finger-snapping, catchy stuff that makes me want to flip this sonofabitch over and over.
–todd (Slovenly)