CD Choice:This weeks CD Choice is Workout Holidayby White Denim

WHITE DENIM
Workout Holiday
Full Time Hobby
****
It really shouldn't work. Hell, there are occasions when it doesn't work. Everything threatens to fall apart and you're just waiting for the crash to bring the process to an end. There are tracks that are nigh improbable in structure, grooves that are out-of-control, verses that bear absolutely no relation to what precedes or follows.

Yet time and time again, White Denim rescue the situation in the most nonchalant manner possible. They casually make a move you didn't see coming or flick a switch and everything becomes clear - or as clear as they want it to be.

White Denim make a virtue of such on-the-spot improvisation, which is why they've become one of the most talked-about live bands of the year. Achieving such coherent stop-go momentum on record, though, is a different matter, yet White Denim do so and do it well.

Recorded in a caravan in the middle of Texas, Workout Holidayis what happens when you apply forward-thinking principles to what's hanging in heritage rock's wardrobe. Every single note on this debut album takes its cues from the past. Garage rock, stoner-blues, psychedelia, beat- group boogaloo, James Brown screaming, gospel hallelujahs and a couple of deep-funk interludes make up the band's arsenal. It's as wide a spread of influences as you're likely to get.

Rather than simply rehashing these sounds into some sort of respectful vintage pastiche, the trio happily dissect and deconstruct them to suit each track. It makes for songs that are invigorating ( Let's Talk About It), rabble-rousing (the crazy jiving on Mess Your Hair Up) and downright hysterical ( Shake Shake Shakewill rock your world in just two and a half minutes).

Workout Holidayis a rampant, runaway ball of sweaty, euphoric confusion, but you probably wouldn't have it any other way.  www.whitedenimmusic.com
JIM CARROLL
Download tracks: Let's Talk About It, All You Really Have to Do, Mess Your Hair Up