Pierced Arrows - Descending Shadows

he songs on Pierced Arrows' first album, Descending Shadows, sound so loose and intuitive that you might assume they were recorded as the band was just learning how to play them. But what you're hearing is the effortless ability of at least 75 years of collective garage-punk experience, courtesy of the husband-and-wife team of Fred and Toody Cole. The former leaders of Dead Moon, the Coles likely make up this music while mowing the lawn in some backwoods town where no one's even heard of blogs, because these tunes are timeless, and unsullied by modern taste. Even as garage rock in the vein of Crazy Horse, the dodgy tempo shifts of "Paranoia," crusty call-out choruses of "On Our Way" and "This Is the Day" and paleolithic riffage of "Let It Rain" are unlike anything even the most obscurantist record store clerk could name-drop. Sure, Toody's singing makes Kim Gordon sound like Karen Carpenter, and drummer Kelly Halliburton holds it all together, but this is as real as rock 'n' roll gets.  - Eye Weekly