Burnout - "Lounge" 7"

Burnout – “Lounge” 7”
Drag City, 1991
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2007
Price: $.25

Drag City! Five years later, I know exactly why I blew 25 cents on this 7”. That was half the art of that day. Sitting in my weird lotus-tinged Indian style on the floor looking through hundreds of 7”s and looking for labels names that I knew. Or 7”s with cool covers. This one though, it was just the Drag City checker pattern and an easy “why not?” The music is almost punk rock and almost grunge but not quite either (erring on the side of punk though, I suppose). It is very sloppy, and comes close to doing it in an almost interesting way but mostly just sounds like a big mush of overblown guitars, punk rock vocals and drums where the snare has to like fight its way to the top of the mix and pokes little holes in the songs. It’s not bad, though. It’s just very opening-band-esque. You know the type. Where you show up at the venue and catch half their set and through the first couple of songs you’re like “Hey, this isn’t half bad” and the last four you’re just impatiently tapping your foot waiting to see the band you came for. It’s not their fault, really. I talk about the universal sound of early 90s college rock and how it’s great that all those bands sound roughly the same and how any band can contribute at least one song that’s totally worth listening to, but none of the songs here really jump out.