Lollipop: Sucked In, Blown Out

On Sucked In, Blown Out, the San Francisco band Lollipop plays some of the harshest, simplest, most mean-spirited garage-rock you'll ever hear. This isn't hot-rod-poseur stuff, or hipper-than-thou New York City slop-rock, but big, loud, shrill, lumbering rock, the kind where "mixing" consists of turning all four knobs up all the way. In these terms, Sucked In, Blown Out is a minor masterpiece, a blistering 28 minutes of scabrous pounding and indecipherable screaming. But be warned: The album pales in comparison with its over-the-top predecessor, 1996's Dog Piss On Dog, mostly because its dose (nine songs, three of them instrumentals) isn't especially generous. And, as is the case with many such acts, Lollipop's is the sort of music that's at its best when absorbed as part of a more multi-sensory experience—along with the smell of sweat and spilled Pabst, the sight of tattooed longhairs, and the sound of giant amplifiers begging for mercy. Still, this is great stuff, even when delivered via the cold sheen of digital recording.