More skuzzy garage rock from increasingly visible pair
Before he donned his gold lamé hot pants and played wild shows like the unholy offspring of Little Richard and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, King Khan made a pair of loose, lewd, lo-fi albums with fellow Montreal ex-pat and former bandmate BBQ—a.k.a. Mark Sultan. Three years after their lip-smacking What’s for Dinner?, the duo re-teams for another set of R&B-inflected, ’60s-influenced garage rock with its juvenile-delinquent charms and dirty minds intact.
“Tastebuds” is both ridiculously raunchy and insanely catchy, while “Anala” only hints at deeper indiscretions with its lascivious doo-wop backing vocals. “Third Ave” is a girl-group ballad writ small, but the limitations of the line-up—just Khan’s skuzzbucket guitar and BBQ’s primitive drums—make it sound bigger and more immediate than a retro retread has a right to be. More than just revivalists, the duo plays these decades-old styles like they never went out of fashion, which makes Invisible Girl a satisfying and strange record.