Posted on: January 30, 2009 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

The White Stripes they aren’t. Though rock duo of Michael Van London and Rhiannon Jones may share the same stripped down guitar/drums lineup and gender makeup as The White Stripes, the comparisons pretty much stop there. The garage rock duo from Los Angeles can turn out sludge rock, but they hardly offer an original take on the genre. From the very beginning, with the rote album opener “Da Bomb,” the nine-track debut is mediocre at best.

Taking cues from every modern garage band from the Hives to the Caesars, though not pulling it off nearly as well, The Bombs are not dreadful, just terribly unoriginal. The one, brief shining moment off of Black Butterfly is the second track “The Shakes” – a song that sounds a bit like something The Strokes would have recorded. But even that song is quickly forgotten.

Top Track: “The Shakes”

Rating: 4 out of 10.

The Bombs – Black Butterfly (CD) / Self-released / 9 tracks

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