Street Hassle – Selected Poems and Other Short Stories (SR)
By Doug Freeman • Jul 30th, 2008 • Category: Featured Story, Label Profile, Sound Reviews![]() |
With their debut EP last year, Get Off Your Knees, Denton’s Street Hassle delivered a fantastic, if super lo-fi, dose of garage rock and Velvet Underground psychedelic drone. The male/female duo keep in the same vein for their first full-length, Selected Poems and Other Short Stories. Though the style is a bit more coherent and production (just) slightly more polished, the LP still mines darkly under the influence of Lou Reed, as their name would anticipate. There are shades of the Black Angels’ same reworking of VU, but Street Hassle rips more of the jagged, garage side of the group, and to excellent effect.
The vocals remain largely buried under the avalanche of skuzzy guitars and keyboards, but it’s primarily the interplay between the dual guitar tunes that defines the album. They move like combative lovers, breaking away into their own widely divergent directions and coming together in driving congress.

