Pound for Pound

Could it be that Royal Trux saved the best for last? Their final album before their initial split / extended break, Pound For Pound is probably the Trux’s ultimate rock-qua-rock album; there’s a purity to the vision here that seems to have stripped away all the group’s prior conceptual baggage. It’s also played by the dream line-up of Neil Hagerty, Jennifer Herrema, Dan Brown, Ken Nasta and Chris Pyle, by some measure the best the Trux ever had, in the studio, at least. There’s an architectural splendour to Pound For Pound, and a number of the songs feel positively cinematic, from the spiral-eyes psychedelia of “Deep Country Sorcerer” through “Sunshine & Grease”’s boy-girl summer love poetry. “Dr. Gone” is their best take on the dual-percussion wig-out, proving, once and for all, that the Grateful Dead really were one of the guiding lights along the Trux’s rocky road.