£5 //
Edition of 100 //
https://premiumleisure.bandcamp.com/album/plug-the-leads-in //
Music is such a funny thing. When I was growing up, I'd hear a song on the radio that I liked or I'd see a video for it on MTV and then I'd go out and buy that album, usually on cassette but later on in life on CD. As I listen to "Plug The Leads In", I'm left wondering whether or not people do that anymore. The radio is its own beast and MTV is pretty much dead, but do people still purchase entire albums on the strength of one song? I don't think that they do. I know that I don't.
Why Premium Leisure makes me think of this is because they have this sound that when I'm listening to a song makes me feel like the next song is going to be that radio hit that I know. Imagine you hear a song on the radio- I don't know, let's say "Bound For The Floor" by Local H- and so you buy "As Good As Dead". You might not be familiar with the other songs at first listen, so you hear them and don't really know them but know that the song you do know is right around the corner at some point. Does that make sense? If it doesn't I don't know how else to describe it but this cassette does make me feel like that.
Premium Leisure have created an album of rock music here which is unlike any other out there and yet at the same time it's not overly complicated. I'm not saying that the music is simple- because it's not- but I have this longstanding theory that no new artist should sound completely like an existing artist because there are just too many influences to pull from that you should be able to craft your own sound even if it's just Hendrix meets Beach Boys. But many times for this new combination to happen I feel like artists have to pull at so many different influences to create a new blend... Premium Leisure just seems to keep it simple in that sense and not feel like it's adding too much to this new potion.
Most every song on here has this killer, distorted blues guitar riff in it. In a lot of ways this reminds me of Damn Personals but I suppose you could pull your own rock n roll influences out as well. Whether it be Tom Petty or something out of the MPLS scene (Replacements, Soul Asylum, etc) there is also some modern garage psych feels here, a little bit of Hendrix (like "Hey Joe" vibes) some Dylan and even some EFS but for the most part all of those artists just scream melody to me. When was the last time you just heard a genuine rock n roll band like this with a blues influence? It's not every day but when they do come around, you have to stop and listen.
"Daydream Drive" has elements of "All The Young Dudes" on it and that just kind of sets the tone for the entire cassette because it pulls between the past and the present, it has that rock n roll sound in one sense but then also in others. Bands like this don't come around often enough but it just gives off that vibe that they really know what they're doing with their instruments-- not in the sense of being classically trained (Which they might be, but that's not the point) but in the way that they play with their souls. You know, it's like how people go to school and study and try to be the best and just can't and then someone just picks up a guitar and lets it bleed out naturally.
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