Walk Home Drunk - Toulouse Moon
(Pantypop 2015)
When he's not whipping up whirlwinds of
pop brutale as the guitarist of French punk trio The Last Drop, Daniel Selig adopts the name Walk Home Drunk, crafting introspective nuggets of wiry guitar rock with the help of his friend
Jérônymous Bouquet on drums. Their third EP and most recent effort, Toulouse Moon, is a terse, punchy collection of post-punk tunes that fuse the glum grunge attitude of early Dinosaur Jr with the bouncy, smartly-layered twang of The Libertines. Selig's charmingly laconic vocal delivery floats ghost-like between warbly lead guitar riffs and rumbling power chords. Though minimal and - save for a few blasts of distortion - fairly clean, it's these twangy and often dark six-string arrangements that turn out to be Walk Home Drunk's most expressive feature. The motorik percussion and hushed singing act as the mortar that holds them together. The duo's sound blends most impressively on "Old Rules" - buzzsaw chords smoothly transition into tapestries of creamy krautrock melody, forming a tunnel that fully envelops the listener. Everything is moving forward at all times.