I never considered Summer Cannibals to be one of the essential acts of the late great garage rock boom of the early '10s, but they always had a certain spunky charm that made the group notable if nothing else. Their first LP had the title No Makeup slapped across its face, and from the moment that dog hit the track they never backed down from that no-second-chances, put-up-or-shut-up style of rock on a kaiser roll... But they DID eventually refine the hell out of it! 2019's Can't Tell Me No is the fourth album from Portland's Summer Cannibals. The era when this defiant bit of pop art dropped was afflicted with an unsightly rash of two-bit hucksters of all hackneyed strains, frankly scraping the barrel for whatever nostalgia they could sprinkle on top of their garbage to hide their stink with a dusting of legitimacy- the dead horse de jure being being Dinosaur Jr.- but Summer Cannibals escaped a trip to the glue factory by only ever aping the Pixies, and doing it in ways that were often as unexpected as a stray toenail glazed into the surface of an apple fritter... albeit far more tempting, as it were. Clearly, when they were bashing together Can't Tell Me No, there were going to be zero naysayers to dissuade the group from recasting and redefining their tried-and-true, no-frills brio- thankfully, such additions managed to clarify and sharpen their sound, rather than weigh it down with gaudy hubris. The album strikes the right note out of the gate with the buzz-guided killer ray of perception "False Anthem," that has this infectious yet measured bounce and enough wiggly elbow room to permit the cracking off of a few groovy and rewarding side tangents. Following that is the title track, "Can't Tell Me No," a feisty little stomper helmed by an angular, desaturated guitar groove reminiscent of Sleater-Kinney circa All Hands on the Bad One with some appropriately fizzy breakdowns thrown in for good measure. Later, "Behave" platforms big Veruca Salt-esque vocal hooks embedded in a tense, Pixies-inspired, riffy groan-huff. Things get a little more lonesome cowgirl-esque with the dizzy, nipping rebuke "Like I Used To," before dipping into the subdued ripple-pop splash of "Innocent Man," which doesn't flinch at the chance to litigate crimes that only take place in the dark, and then "Start Breaking" takes us on a sweetly retributive demolition exhibition. Lastly, I genuinely appreciate how this heater fades out with a shimmering, melt-on-touch adieu, "Into Gold"; it's a sweet and affirming send-off that the album had surely earned by the end. Can't Tell Me No really feels like the culmination of the band's career and intentions- if they were satisfied to kick up their feet and lean on this thing's laurels for now until the big one drops, I wouldn't blame them one bit.
