Retro Active

The current neo-garage movement is the first resurrection that glances at those trails, squints in the sun, and says, "Nope, nothing interesting up there." For all the punchy records it's given us, the 21st-century underground is the most purely backward-looking revival rock has ever produced. In no uncertain terms, it essentially announces that the genre has nothing new left to say and leaves innovation to other styles. (It's also worth noting that the first garage scene wore out its public welcome pretty fast; the first Nuggets anthology is filled with as many one-hit wonders as any Now disc.) It's an uneasy place for any art form to be, but for rock, it's downright dangerous. Unless the music decides to head down new avenues, it could end up with as many defined boundaries as bluegrass or Dixieland jazz. The new garage gets you nodding your head to the thump-thump of kicky beats but also fills your head with a few troubling thoughts.

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