Cement Tomb Mind Control

One of the first things you’ll notice about Cement Tomb Mind Control is how short it is. All of 21 minutes long, the new full-length from Madison’s The Hussy hurries to the finish line. But even at a blinding speed, it’s more than enough time for the album to stick to the brain.

A big reason for the album’s brevity is The Hussy’s quick-witted take on songwriting. Cement Tomb catalogs a series of fast jolts and lightning-bolt production through bursts of activity. In each of the 13 tracks, the duo jumps into the middle of a riff, ransacks it for a few good ideas, and then leaves it alone before anything can go awry. The songs’ meager lengths can be seen as something like self-imposed time limits, because The Hussy’s members’ overzealous attitudes cut both ways—they have a lot they want to cover, but you get the sense they’d spend all day digging through any one sound if given the opportunity.

They must have done all of that legwork beforehand, though, because Cement Tomb is highly informed by a vast array of garage rock styles while staying committed to The Hussy’s urgent and enthusiastic approach. They coast from the brash “I’m Me” to the surf-minded “Sexi Ladi” and the desert-sized scope of “Demon Claus” without sounding trite or out of place. They tie together the sing-song “Pavement” and the motor-heavy “Lymes (New Turk)” with a healthy string of reckless abandon. The wide range of Cement Tomb would be problematic if The Hussy wasn’t too carefree to notice.

It also helps that the two can really play their instruments. Bobby Hussy’s towering guitar lifts Cement Tomb through air and space, while Heather Sawyer’s steam-engine drumming grounds the two on a cohesive path, no matter how meandering it gets.

Despite the torrid pace, Cement Tomb never feels rushed. It bolts everything together with an overbearing sense of playfulness, and if The Hussy wrote a really great garage rock record, then the band is the last to know. But Cement Tomb really is an impressive collection of choice rock ’n’ roll nuggets. It flashes both a wild ambition and a hyperactive means of tackling it, and it needs to be played over and over again—not just because it ends too soon, but because it hardly ever needs to end at all.

The Hussy celebrates the album’s release April 28 at The Frequency.