Dee Rangers – Five Spanish Minutes

The Dee Rangers could be one of the greatest overlooked bands in garage rock today, but why that is is simply beyond me. Maybe it’s because they’re Swedish, and have simply been given the slip because of the success of so many other Swedish rawk’n'roll acts, who knows. I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have to rely on hype to know what’s good, right? Well, some of us don’t, I suppose. The garage freaks in Europe seem to know what’s up, as these guys have been invited to play at some pretty high-profile festivals over the past year or so, including Gearfest in Sweden this past June, the Primitive 2 Dutch International Garage Festival in July, and they’re booked for the Spanish Beat Goes On festival that’s taking place just a couple of weeks from now. And there’s good reason why they’re finally getting this much-deserved exposure. While these guys have been kicking some serious garage-punk ass for quite a while now, accumulating quite an impressive discography of singles on such great labels as Estrus, Rockin’ Bones, and Munster, they haven’t been able to put forth that one really great record that might just push them to the top of the heap… that is, perhaps, until now. Quite frankly,Five Spanish Minutes was one of the best rock’n'roll releases of 2005, yet unfortunately I don’t think many people on this side of the Atlantic even knew about it. In fact, only one person even bothered to list it in the Best Albums of 2005 topic on the message board (go figure). This is simply a fantastic album, and, in this humble reviewer’s opinion, is easily the band’s best to date (the other two being 2002’s So Far Out So Good and 2003’s Pretty Ugly Beat—both on the now defunct White Jazz label). This new LP, which was released towards the tail-end of 2005 on Germany’s Screaming Apple Records, is ripe with organ-driven, hip-shakin’, swingin’ ’60s-flavored garage rock, and the album is not short on great songwriting that includes powerful hooks that make it one of the most memorable LPs I’ve heard in quite some time. But what impressed me most about this album was the band’s obvious departure from the more Fleshtones-influenced sound of their previous records. I don’t know if “matured” is the word I really wanna use here (since maturing in rock’n'roll is usually so closely related to suddenly sucking ass), but it’s clear to me that they’ve really come into their own on this release and have nailed down a sound that is anything but bland or predictable retro-garage. Indeed, it’s records like this that clearly show that this often overly crowded genre still has the potential to produce exciting music that takes the best elements of the past and throws them at ya with enough verocity that you can’t help but be optimistic about the future of garage rock. Let’s just hope that the Dee Rangers continue to be a part of that future. Enjoy the MP3s below. They’re my top picks from Five Spanish Minutes.

Dee Rangers – Hey Girl (MP3)
Dee Rangers – Empty House (MP3)
Dee Rangers – I Miss My Girl (MP3)