It’s rather common for musical artists to lighten up as the years pass, but this is to be expected with age. It’s often impossible to cling onto the anger of youth. Just ask Paul Weller or James Dean Bradfield. Even Henry Rollins sounded like a pale imitation of himself on the Rollins Band’s disappointingly lightweight swansong ‘Nice’ in 2001. There are notable exceptions, of course: the first couple of OFF! albums showcase a punk “retirement age” Keith Morris with as much fire as he had in his Black Flag days, and Slayer’s ‘Repentless’ from 2015 attacks a huge amount of energy and absolute fury, resulting in their best work for a quarter of a century. It could even rank within their top five best albums ever.
Over twenty years on from the release of their ‘Columbus Was Wrong…’ album, The Dry Retch prove to be another exception to the idea that getting older means a retreat to a safe space. ‘Straight Outta Cuba!’, released in October 2024, captures the Liverpool-based noise-makers in a savage mood, and rightly so, considering the state of the entire world at the time of its recording.
An instant stand out, ‘Shanghai Surprise’ opens with a huge fuzz driven riff, falling somewhere between classic Stooges and the slower, moodier aspects of Motorhead, before exploding into a full scale garage rocker where the fuzz ploughs angrily against a solid, rhythmic groove that shows how tight The Dry Retch can be, despite conveying a constantly raw sound. A brief rock ‘n’ roll infused guitar solo does its best to increase the careening, furious edge, but if anything here truly captures the band’s genuinely fiery edge, its a lead vocal from John which, drenched in reverb, echoes recordings like Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’, giving this band an even more (pleasingly) retro sound than many garage punk acts. ‘So Alone’ continues apace, sharing a very similar guitar tone, but a much choppier riff allowing for a much more aggressive drum sound gives the performance an extra edge. Even when the chorus dispenses with the raw sound in favour of more of a ringing tone, this very live sounding performance continues to drive forward with an ugliness that’s hard to beat. Like hearing old Stooges classics retooled with a deep psychedelic spooky vibe, the main riffs are stellar, but this time around, it’s another sharp lead guitar break that’s in danger of stealing the show by introducing an unexpectedly bluesy tone. For lovers of solid garage rock sounds, powered by distortion and and fumes, this will be another favourite, if not a future Dry Retch classic.
Equally angry, but taking in a little extra speed, ‘Cataclismised’ sounds like a 1989 era Mudhoney number dragged through a world of distortion, then subjected to a cranking of the volume knobs. The guitar riffs are so distorted, you’ll hear them breaking up, and so loud they bury half of the vocal. Not that this stops frontman John Retch from attempting to deliver a performance that rarely falls short of a howling fury. Although ‘Not No One’ is very much in danger of presenting a band repeating themselves by the time it appears midway through this musical journey, those who have a love for The Dry Retch sound will still find plenty to love. John and JP’s relentless guitar work comes together to deliver a killer riff on this track, and behind the more in your face elements, it’s great to hear drummer Wils adding some great fills to a powerful rhythm.
‘Straight Outta Cuba!’ may well favour an angry sound, but it’s certainly not one dimensional. The epic ‘She Was The One’ intersperses a chugging garage riff with quiet, unsettling passages where deep bass sounds and a grumbling vocal sound like an unholy union between an overlooked goth rock act from 1981 and the ghost of The Doors. This allows the band to explore intense sounds of a very different kind, even if it’s the obvious lifts from The Stooges via an insane buzzsaw guitar riff that ultimately leave the most indelible impression, and ‘Get Over It, Bo’ slips in few more blues rock influences, working itself around a riff that sounds like an old Bo Diddley jam (as more than hinted at by the title), fused with a punkier chorus that, again, shares morelove for early Mudhoney. As you might expect, its Wils who steals the show here with some really intense tom work, but once the chorus hits, the razor edged guitars are almost as impressive. With a production job that comes closer to the Melvins’ debut EP from ’86, this is another highlight on an already strong album.
Elsewhere, ‘Petrograd Overture’ adds overtones of doom to a raw garage rock sound, and the segue into the following ‘Put You In The Picture’ overlays a Melvins meets Stooges riff with a soaring guitar sound that, again, brings a hint of blues to a noisier backdrop, before the main thrust of ‘…Picture’ showcases The Dry Retch in full on punk ‘n’ roll mode, applying a grubby Stooges sound to an arrangement that occasionally tips the hat to early Supersuckers. For anyone who’s found a love for The Dry Retch previously, over time, this broader sounding workout could become one of this record’s standout tracks.
Despite the band’s angry sound being very well suited to being delivered as relatively short bursts of noise, ‘…Cuba’ ends with three extended compositions, taking The Dry Retch from abrasive, sometimes punky fare and further into the realms of retro garage rock and things that could seem a little more unsettling. ‘Ain’t No Happenstance’ works a couple of minutes’ worth of the band’s patented garage punk noise, before descending into a slow, doom blues riff, only then for the arrangement to reinvent itself again, thundering into a world of speed driven noise where John and JP hammer their way through a few bars of something that sounds like a NWOBHM band cranking out The Gun’s ‘Race With The Devil’ whilst valuing fury over finesse. It’s brilliant, and certainly shows off a few of the band’s more complex chops without veering too far away from the raw edge that makes The Dry Retch great.
‘Dysentery-Destiny-History’ opens with one of the record’s more melodic jams when bassist Dave launches into a brilliant groove that’s almost funky, before the expected layers of distortion and sneering vocals revert to more of a Stooges blueprint. Not that the tight groove gives in: you’ll hear Dave and Wils putting in the hard yards throughout, and save for a during more direct chorus, the busier bass sounds remain one of this track’s dominant features. Even when things slow down for a clangy lead guitar break, the bass work indulges in some great riffs, and once the tempo reverts to its original driving approach and JP attacks with a layer of fuzz, Dave continues to share an impressively fat tone. By contrast, the eight minute ‘1514’ isn’t quite as cool, but for those interested in keeping a closer ear on the individual elements, the musicianship will continue to impress. Wils, at first, underscores bluesy guitar lines with descending tom work, and John’s still echoing vocal sounds even more like something derived from The Stooges than ever before. By the time the band hit their stride, it becomes very clear that this whole epic has been modelled on one of Iggy and Co.’s slow burning, less punky numbers. With everything eventually cranking up several gears, the album is allowed to end with a thrilling assault of garage punk riffs, shared with even more distortion than before. The Dry Retch certainly aren’t about to bow out quietly, and although they aren’t always about originality, this track more than proves that when recycling classic sounds with a huge amount of love, this veteran band sound very strong.
Falling somewhere between a sludge fuelled Mudhoney, The Stooges and a raw punk act valuing power over melody, the bulk of ‘Straight Outta Cuba!’ has a mature sound that could be decades old at the time of release, but at the same time, shares the kind of distorted soundscapes and uneasily drawled vocals that sound equally cool in a contemporary setting. It’s a record that fans will love and will leave newcomers wondering how they’ve let these Retchers sail under their collective radar for so, so long. Delivering a world of great riffs and zero filler, this is a highly recommended listen.
May 2025