Consumer Guide Album

The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms [Stiff, 1980]
They're suburban lads from New Jersey every bit as normal and unspoiled as, oh, Brian Wilson, only this ain't 1961: why shouldn't they know about Coltrane and "Sister Ray"? Beneficiaries of local privilege note that the magnitude of their rave-ups--and in essence all they do is rave-up--doesn't come fully alive on record, but their freshness and purity of conception does. Exciting in a disturbingly abstract way, or maybe disturbing in an excitingly abstract way, and either way is just the way these so-straight-they're-cool weirdos want it. A-