Current mood:
thankful
Betty Machete
Independent
EDEN MUNRO / eden@vueweekly.com
If ever there's been a band plagued by drummer problems in Spinal Tap-like proportions, its local garage rockers Betty Machete. It seems as though the band has been fighting an uphill battle for too long, especially considering the fact that the trio/quartet has been flexing its creative muscles since getting together a couple of years back. The core trio of Kelsey Thompson on guitars and vocals, Jet Vee on keys and vocals and Jim Vaughan on bass has remained steadfast through it all, though, and they managed to steady the ship enough recently to put together this self-titled EP.
It's been interesting watching Betty Machete find its footing on the stage since the band's beginning—the musicians have become increasingly comfortable with each other, pushing themselves a little more at each gig, and it shows on this disc: opening track "Walking Dead," for instance, is powered by a keyboard that sounds as though it's about to be obliterated in a wave of apocalyptic distortion, and there's a delightfully spooky Church organ-ish breakdown late in the game—the sort of thing you'd imagine accompanying the Sunday service if the organist was a corpse.
Thompson's singing is spot-on throughout his five tracks as vocalist, but it's the interplay with Vee that gives the disc an extra kick. Now if only the group can just drive a stake in the heart of that drummer problem—the problem, not the drummer—and get onto recording a full-length.
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=7022
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