Changing Moods
Another new collection of classic ’80s/’90s alt-rock, which also happens to have Christian Fritz’s involvement: The Mood Swings enlisted him and four other DJs to remix five of the six new songs on their second album for Susstones Records, “No Limit.” Did you get all that? Added up, the disc — which the band will promote tonight at the Hexagon — is essentially one EP with a remix EP of those same songs tacked on the end.
As with a lot of other local indie-rockers who have gone through the techno-wannabe blender (see: Bob Mould, Low), the dance beats and digi-blips on the remixes sound forced and just plain awkward. But the original tunes stand up more than fine on their own. Lead Swingers Ashley Prenzlow and Sallie Watson — with newish full-time drummer Michael Reiter (Mighty Mofos) — took the tight, spunky harmonies from their first album and added more tight, spunky, dueling guitar parts in nuggets like the Hole-styled opener “Simple Things” and the fun “Louie, Louie”-lifting romp “Want Need Love.”
Reprinted from Chris Riemenschneider’s article Star & Tribune 6/15/07
