April 14th, 2007

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS "TOW TRUCK" CD REVIEW BY ROB WILLIAMS

Anyone who has seen a Perpetrators live show knows the local trio isn't strictly a blues band. Oh sure, they can bash those familiar 12 bars into the ground, but they can also duke it out with the best rock bands around.

They take the roller-coaster frenzy of their live show and channel in into their third album, kicking things off with a surf-rock instrumental and ending with a frantic jam. In between, vocalist-guitarist Jason Nowicki, bassist Ryan Menard and drummer Chris Bauer dabble in country-blues (Honeypie), fuzzed-out garage (You're Gonna Kill Me), avant-psychedelia (Toe Stub), back-porch country (Josco) and even some distorted boogie-woogie (Happy Friday).

Their experimentaion with sounds and genres doesn't mean the end of the kind of music for which they are best known. Blues remains the foundation of much of the material, especially on tracks like I Can't See, Baltimore, Movin' Right Along and Call Me.

Tow Truck finds the Juno-nominated group moving from blues-rockers to blues-adventurers, which ain't no crime at all. See for yourself tonight and tomorrow when they release the album at Times Change(d).

(4 1/2 Stars)