The Hindi Guns

The Hindi Guns (FCC)

By Anne C. Johnson
Published: May 3rd, 2004 | 4:59pm

Portland, Oregon's Hindi Guns have produced a musically sound, yet flawed, piece of work featuring the world-weary vocals of frontwoman Dee Dee Cheriel. The Guns have altered the standard garage formula by slowing the tempo and adding some interesting twists, like the Latin flavor of "Fury." The guitar work by Roger Campos is especially fine. The fault lies with Ms. Cheriel. Her vocals work fine at first ("London Rain") but start to grate by the second track (and there are eight more to go). When she invites, "Let's take off our clothes when it's sunny," the effect is not sexy in the least but instead whiny and irritating. Sure, we all like Courtney Love (her vocals, at least) and Kim Gordon, but Cheriel's vocal work sounds like a bad parody of the two. It appears that the producer agrees as he/she practically smothers them with guitar and piano on "Come On." Dee Dee is certainly accomplished; she is a veteran of several Pacific Northwest bands (Adickdid, Juned, the Teenangels) and she co-wrote most of the album's songs and the screenplay for the film Down and Out with the Dolls with fellow Hindi Gun Kurt Voss (he also directed the film). Who knows, maybe it works well live. (My sister was a less generous: "She's gotta be someone's girlfriend.")

The band has only been together since the summer of 2003 so it has time to make any necessary changes. Another observation is that several of the songs tend to be a little lengthy. Have we learned nothing from the Ramones?