Over the course of his illustrious 30-plus-year career, Brian Tristan–who does business as Kid CongoPowers–has played with punk legends the Cramps, punk-blues luminaries the Gun Club, and, most famously, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on two of their classic albums, Tender Prey and the Good Son. For the better part of the past decade, though, he’s been making sweet, sweet noise with the Pink Monkey Birds. Not unlike a punk-infused version of the Spiders from Mars, from whom they derive their name, the Pink Monkey Birds are in the business of sleazy rock music. And while Gorilla Rose isn’t exactly Ziggy Stardust (nor does it aim for that level of pomp and circumstance), it’s a brilliant rawk album, the likes of which hardly ever comes around these days.The album opens with the wild “Bo Bo Boogaloo”, which rides a rowdy dance rhythm–complete with trumpeting guitars–from start to finish. The Pink Monkey Birds’ rhythm section, made up of Kiki “El Coyote” Solis on bass and Ron “The Cap’n” Miller on drums, holds the fort down mightily. Powers doesn’t seem to sing much, often preferring to speak through his overdriven guitar, only occasionally stepping in to let his sneer take center stage, as he does over the taut backbeat of “Goldin Browne”.
