Review: Mark Sultan – $

Amidst working with King Khan under the name BBQ and collaborating with King Khan and the Black Lips as the Almighty Defenders, Mark Sultan had time in 2008 to record $, an album full of doo-wop-influenced garage rock. Now, the taste du jour is definitely straightforward garage rock, ask no questions. And here Sultan’s got a bunch of tracks here that do just that—“Status,” “I’ll Be Loving You” and “Don’t Look Back” are all guaranteed barn-burners which show off Sultan’s songwriting fleshed out into a full band. But then there are the songs like “Icicles” and “I Am the End,” which are stripped down and chug along, albeit at a snail’s pace. The intro for “I Am the End” goes as far as just using Sultan’s voice, tons of reverb, a tambourine, and ambient noise—yet Sultan doesn’t lose any of his soul despite it. It’s kind of weird to think of, since this album is coming from a guy who has built up his name from a plethora of lo-fi seven-inches, but this is a fully-conscious studio album. Some songs have weird, scratchy noise on them and some others are totally radio friendly. I’d highly doubt seeing Mark Sultan play under his own name and touring these songs, or even playing stripped-down versions of these as BBQ—but then again, that’s why he made an album. (Last Gang, www.lastgangentertainment.com) Taylor Burgess