Note: In order to have a better understanding of the Forty-Fives, an old man wrote this intro: “Back in my day, before you had your fancy CDs and eight tracks, albums were pressed on vinyl. Yes, vinyl, that same stuff on the top of your fancy four-door Pintos. You kids have it so easy these days with your Walkmen and Kazaa; back when we wanted to play music, we had to put a needle on that vinyl and sound would magically come out. And if we only wanted to hear one song, well, we had these things called “singles,” which were printed on vinyl as well, but on smaller pieces. These were 45-rpm records, or for short “Forty-Fives.” You kids wouldn’t know anything about this though, with your “rap” and dance-punk. Back in my day we had real bands like Johnny Winters and…” Ok, maybe it’s best to cut him off here. He doesn’t seem to be helping.

The Forty-Fives started in obscurity and still are there, despite being one of the acts at Little Steven’s International Underground Garage Festival. They’re an underground alternative to the now mainstream Strokes, but bring nothing new or truly interesting into the garage scene that isn’t already there. Their songs are not bad by any means. It’s just most of them aren’t anything special. On their album High Life High Volume, they show they know how to mimic bands of garage past well. The opener, “Who Do You Think You Are?” is a solid rocker that molds Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones with the bombastic energy of the MC5. This energy goes throughout most of the album, (until the ballad “Too Many Miles”), making the album a fun experience, but mostly unfulfilling. “Go Ahead And Shout” tries to go deeper into garage influence by doing a harmonica line that could be confused for Keith Relf, just not as good.

The highlights of the album come in the Otis Blackwell cover,”Daddy Rolling Stone,” and the poppy “Junkfood Heaven.” The latter is the best song on the album (and possibly one of the best songs to be associated with garage revival). The former has more feeling in it than anything else on the album and is a nice companion to the works of Aerosmith or the Creation.

By no means is this a bad album. If you’re a garage fan you’ll love it. It brings nothing new to the genre, but it’s still better than some other recent garage releases (looking at you Mooney Suzuki!)

-Billy Florio