Bondie beatdown boosts band's blastoff

The Von Bondies only real claim to fame -- I'm really not kidding -- is the fact that lead singer Jason Stollsteimer got his ass kicked in a bar by White Stripes frontman Jack White. That may have put them on the map, but it doesn't necessarily say much about their musical ability. They can play and they're definitely interested in what they're doing, but musically they're really not at all unique -- it's just more Detroit garage rock.\nEvery band from Detroit wants to be the Stooges or Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, but very few of them have anything to offer other than strikingly familiar guitar parts and a lot of attitude. Other Detroit bands like Electric Six play a comedic angle, whereas the Von Bondies, whose songwriting is relatively unremarkable, seem to take themselves very, very seriously. If it weren't for the fact that they put forth a certain driving, crashing intensity, this album would probably be as distinct as a CD of rock-themed segue music used in a newsroom, and one look at the back cover lets you know no one's going to follow them for their looks.\nThere are insane drum breaks and speed-addled blues riffs, not to mention the fact that Stollsteimer howls like Glenn Danzig more often than not. The production is very sharp, and tracks, like "Not That Social," manage to keep your attention, especially when bassist Carrie Smith is singing. There's a tremendous energy which will lend them some staying power (and it suggests an awesome live show), though none of them are going to be eating glass or shooting up from mud puddles anytime soon -- there can only be one Iggy Pop. However, any band which works as hard as it can on each track to earn the CD's $14 price tag (regardless of catchiness or the presence of anything groundbreaking) will definitely carve themselves a niche in the same way that their pseudo-garage brothers the Strokes are eroding theirs by playing the disaffected angle to the point of being insulting.\nWho knows, when Jack White kicked their singer's ass, maybe he unleashed the fury which makes this band work. There is nothing here which hasn't been done over and over since the days of the MC5, but it will probably make your toes tap and your head nod, and at the end of the day that's hardly a bad thing.