Starting with a prodigious output of solo project lo-fi garage rock that echoed the sounds emanating from the dive bars of NYC 20 years ago, Mississippi native John Barret’s Bass Drum of Death are now a live performance and touring juggernaught. Since forming in 2008, and releasing their debut EP Stain Stick Skin on the tastemaking Fat Possum Records; the band’s touring lineup has evolved from Barrett solo playing a bass drum and guitar to the searing, raw live experience they deliver with a drums and two guitar attack these days.
Latest album, last year’s Just Business, has seen the band take massive steps in the scope and scale of their sound, with the claustrophobic fits of their earlier releases now amplified into a reverb soaked widescreen panorama, with Barret positioned as the evangelist preacher leading a schizophrenic sermon that takes musical cues from The Hives to The Buzzcocks, The White Stripes to The Only Ones with the odd genuflection to The Cramps thrown in for good measure.
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