Brandon Jazz & His Armed Forces

07.30 ARMED FORCES @ NIGHTLIGHT
They're a shoulder-shimmying strumpet with a runaway past, a joyriding, drug-addled gallon of gas looking for a sucker to light their lucky. Glam punk-poppers Armed Forces plays a decadent, rebellion-riddled three-card monte of '60s garage-soul organ, bloozy, slashing blasts of guitar Thunders, and frontman Brandon Jazz's cooly importuning vocals. The indefatigable, energetic rhythms power big hooks sprinkled with backing harmonies, often suggesting a slightly grimier iteration of fellow Nashville residents The Pink Spiders (one guests on debut EP, Modern Gospel for Modern Men & Women). A combustible blend of glue-huffing threats, loitering libido and knee-jerk defiance, Armed Forces is a reminder seditious teen spirit springs eternal. With Fire in the Woods and Merch. 9:30 p.m. —Chris Parker - Independent Weekly (Chapel Hill)

The thing I love about rock and roll is the wide sonic pallet that it encompasses. That is why I never get bogged down in genres, but sometimes I do feel myself listening a bit too much to one style or other so it’s nice to have a band come along and kind of smack me upside the head and change my sense of direction.

The Armed Forces are from Nashville, Tennessee and at first listen of their CD Modern Gospel For Modern Men & Modern Women I knew there was something there that I liked, I just wasn’t sure what it was. But as with all of my favourite CDs, multiple listening revealed to me a great band that had a definite, modern twist to their powerpop hook. The song that got to me first was The Runaways. The finger clicking and female back up vocals clinched it for me and made me hungry for more. In The Free World was next and everything else on this 5 song CD followed quickly thereafter. I won’t insult you by comparing them to somebody since you will probably email me to tell me that I am out of my tree because they sound more like THIS band but I will toss out moder, hooky, angry at times and volume knob worthy.

Check them out at their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/thearmedforces and listen to them on an upcoming edition of the Rock and Roll Report Podcast and Rock and Roll Report Radio. - www.rockandrollreport.com

Brandon Jazz, as head of the long-hyped"World's Most Dangerous Pop Band," takes these five songs (their forthcoming debut album should be out later this year) and cuts them up into seven-inch single bites (any song here has "Hit" written all over it), and soaks them with his short stories of want and danger ( "Now, Now People" & "Everything You Know is Wrong," respectively), and drench them with fuzz guitars, squealing-tire feedback, his glam rock vocals and harmonies.

After a 47 second blast of CBGB basic punk ("Rock N' Roll Niigger (Part Two)," the closing song "In the Free World," is filled with distortion, echo, and an unrelenting riff. Beauty and beast in equal measures leaves you wanting a full album of this stuff!

And, to borrow what Roger Clemens said in front of The House Oversight Committee, don't "misremember" to buy this album when it comes out! - Phil Rainone - www.jerseybeat.com