The Ettes "Danger Is"

Take Root Records

By Frank De Blase on March 18, 2009

You can tighten up, polish up, work out, and get down on virtually every aspect of your rock 'n' roll -- except for the raw. The more you cook it, it loses its juice, it loses its blood. L.A. trio The Ettes keep it juicy and bloody on "Danger Is," a rough-and-tumble tour through the band's primitive garage rock dirge. The studio cuts and live tracks at the end burn and blend with identical anger and heat -- the sign of a great band, if you ask me. Like early material by the Cramps or even Panther Burns, everything sounds like a one-taker full of attitude and sex appeal. It's raunchy, visceral, and slightly antagonistic. There's Detroit muscle and Memphis soul, all served with a little Lower East Side strut. The Ettes rock, baby.