The year 2007 has been undeniably great for rock'n roll, and one of the year's most outstanding contributors to the craft is undoubtedly Rich Crook, the man behind the most prolifically deranged pop outfit of the hour, Lover! This 7" on the Iekk! Sounds label out of Spain is the perfect cap on a year for the band, featuring a whopping two full-length LPs and two singles, and is testament to the raw and uncut pop venom that leaks from the seams of Crook's overwhelming songbook. And just when anyone with an ounce of respectability would dismiss anything after a band's first two albums as still being passable, it's the strength of this fourth release that shows there's so much more greatness in store.
With the single's viscerally penetrating A-side, "Forced To The Ground" cutting sideways against the grain of pop practicality and reinvigorating the genre in real time, it's the unassuming B-side "I'll Be There" that really bares the agonizing soul and conviction that truly puts Lover! on another plane. So much of a polar opposite from his days behind the drum kits of Memphis icons The Reatards and Lost Sounds, it's the freshly ground meaty pop sound that Lover! offers up so effortlessly that shines on enduringly so much like the first time I got hit by the FM Knives back in the pivotally magical summer of 2002. The vocals are super-human in their textural gutsiness, and the layers of dizzying guitars lock into pleasure receptors without any struggle creating a simple yet exceptional modern pop sound that's so instantly gratifying that it's seriously almost nauseating. Look for a new single on HoZac Records in 2008, and if you're not already a huge fan, it's not too late to track down the first and second albums (available on P.Trash and Red Lounge respectively) and pick up the Iekk! Sounds single from Florida's Dying right HERE before it's too late and this small European tour edition of 424 copies is gone.
check out a video clip of Lover! at Gonerfest 2007 performing "Bo Peep And Frank" right here...
