Union Of A Man & A Woman-- The Sound of The Union of a Man & A Woman (Jagjaguwar 009)

Finally A Va. band that I can personally guarantee that Greil Marcus would pop a chub over.

How cliched is this story, three high-schoolers practice in their basements for a couple of years getting it just right and then pop up at an open mic night and wow a label CEO, in doing so making the five grand they need to save the farm from the evil debt collector (played by Bob Hoskins). Two out of those three things apply to the band that I will hereafter, for space's sake, refer to as Union. They sound like an avalanche of glass, or maybe like excited atoms of TNT making that last surge just before they get their activation energy going. It's a brutal assault.

I was there when they showed up that night at Tokyo Rose, and nobody was expecting this, an unholy skree-ingracket with layers and layers of ooey-gooey feedback and enough spasmorhythmic drive to propel the entire Riverdance crew through a wall of cobras and spikes, and seemingly played for that very same purpose. Add to that the sort of home experimentation that I hold so dear (short wave radio, a violin played like a bandsaw, Red Ryder wagon with coils for the beating) and I had to stop myself from calling Greil up myself and telling him to hitch up the old bandwagon again, it's a new art-punk era, it hails from Staunton (where the cool kids live) and we better get straight for the last supper. Later, over at Jameson's, I calmed down and told myself no, they're just one of the five best bands around. That's still something.

The only bands I've heard that are anything close are Bastro and maybe the Hal al-Sheddad, but latter comparison might just be 'cause they're young'uns playing with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake as well. But they're just punks, God love 'em. Union's a lot more than that. They've got their own ideas, as well. I'm glad they put this out before anyone else could mess with them.

T. Magill