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"Chris Thomson is still pissed about the state of pop music, and thank God (Iggy!) for Wake Up, Legend, the first full-length album from Red Eyed Legends, the former Circus Lupus, Skull Control, and Monorchid frontman's current musical incarnation. Wake Up, Legend is a sound for sore ears. . . . Red Eyed Legends excel in their postpunk, awkward danciness and told-you-so rockness, like Buddy Holly's rock band in Hell. From the twangy, slapback beginning chords of the opener 'Monsters' (a little ditty about daytime television, blindfolds you can see through, dungeons, microphones, etc) to the final chords of 'Expectations vs. Reality' (another top-rate romp with Thomson deriding the ridiculousness of punk, exposing the inert lameness that often surrounds music scenes), Thomson holds the same authority he always has, spouting off new ideas and eliciting rabid animal anger to all the unfortunate situations, obvious statements, lowest common denominators, uninformed people, fakers, posers, imposters, and other idiots that somehow stumble into becoming musical authority. Take heed, charlatans, you have been warned!" --Skyscraper Magazine

"The Red Eyed Legends crank to life with a mouth-foaming aggression, jag-edged guitar riffs rebounding off the crazy confines of their songs, squawks and honks of Farfisa flying, and frontman Chris Thomson snarling out hazily rhymed, rapid-motion lines. . . . On this first full-length, the band’s sound is pitched somewhere between garage rock and punk, its stutter spazz intensity recalling the Ex Models, its giddy swathes of organ tone evoking classic stompers like the Lyres. 'Je M’Apelle Macho' is a ripping tangle of rumble-ready guitars and cross-band shouts, all sharp, acute angles and staccato rhythms. The guitar solo that breaks from all this chaotic angst, though, has a tinge of 60s surf in it, an evil, melodic heft like one of the Mermen with a bad migraine. Later, on 'Bloody Birds' a spook-house Farfisa takes center stage, building bright, wavery textures of sound behind Thomson’s hoarse-throated rhyming. . . . The band is chaotically tight, a machine gun splatter of notes rebounding off walls at crazy angles, yet meshing somehow into a steady, head-pounding rhythm. Like the Fall, they create a boxy, constrained sound whose firestorm energy is concentrated and contained within repetitive structures. It’s a platform, really, for Thomson, who riffs rhythmically over the music, his lines full of internal stresses and cadences. . . . That internal rhythm, augmented with occasional group shouts and call-and-responses, makes the Red Eyed Legends sound sometimes like an extremely rough, garage-rocking kind of rap. . . . If it’s time for you to wake up, as it was for these Red Eyed Legends, you could do worse than “Monsters”. There’s no snooze button on that cut, that’s for sure." --Pop Matters

"Punk with all the primitive joy, humor, energy, anger and self-directed disgust that makes it what it is. Chris Thomson (from the Monorchid) is still alive and kicking!" --Slumber Party International "This band really sounds like a pissed-off version of the B-52s, which is almost a contradiction in terms. It’s like being at an abortion-clinic protest on ecstasy. You just want to dance but everybody’s angry about dead fetuses and whatnot. I’m just waiting for 'Rock Lobster' to come on." --Vice

Ever get the feeling that indie rock's only challenging about two thirds of your brain? Ever feel as if the genre's really good at hitting up the cultured reasoning your ego loves so well and makes a strong attempt to at morally justifying artistic progress as a cultural imperative, a la super-ego thinking?

That's all fine and good, but rock's always been a medium that's primarily concerned with the baser, primal drives that stem from our id. The thrill of sex. The joys of losing yourself in a dance. The raw energy of a great riff. A soundtrack for your violent impulses. They're all not just reasons so many parents used to hate rock music. They're an essential building block of the music.

The Red Eyed Legends pack away all higher-brain functions on Wake Up, Legend and create a hedonistic feast for your id. Tapping into the same garage/punk vibe as Rocket From the Crypt as it delves around in post-punk and indie rock's dank, creepy basements, Wake Up, Legend is all wild abandon, barely controlled guitar work and yelped vocals. It's the antithesis of cultured artistic discourse, densely literate lyrics and pure-pop stewardship so prized these days. That's just the point.

In a mess of tinny, garage-rock guitars -- which sound all the gnarlier as they're chewed up and spit out by buzzing, overworked amps -- and organs, The Red Eyed Legends are all fury. "Monsters" opens the album as singer/guitarist Chris Thompson manages more ragged punk-rock soul in the song's first 30 seconds than many acts get over an entire career. "Don't Make it Go Too Fast" and "Je M'Appelle Macho" have equal love for Fugazi's angular and fleeting dynamics as Rocket from the Crypt's penchant for getting down and dirty. "Ghetto Hulk" smashes through garage-band expectations with arrangements that twist and turn with all the unexpected spasms of post-punk breakdowns.

By its very hedonistic-rock nature, Wake Up, Legend extols the values of rock traditions. Because of that, it can't really rock the boat in too many unexpected ways, even when its post-hardcore roots take over. Pushing the envelope's pretty overrated, though, and The Red Eyed Legends prove that, once again, rock's throbbing, dirty underbelly's always going to be as important as its highbrow, high-art cranium. --Aversion