Tyvek

Nothing Fits

(In the Red)

Detroit: The city that has firmly put its fist into the new garage scene for the last decade and a half can now claim another problem/gifted child among the many beautiful and boil-covered bastards trading in abrasive and abusive guitar rock. And this is a very good thing, although Tyvek’s noisy, no-fi blistering punk is not going to be appreciated by pristine pop fans. Yeah, that’s clearly the idea. Dropping the needle on a record that has two sides of a blank black label, I have a feeling that this is a confrontational band out to make you think twice about what you’re doing. They relish it.

Tyvek’s sophomore album is a gnarly, no-holds-barred collection of 12 willfully compact tracks and checks in at under a half hour total, roaring between fucked-up rewrites of 1960s Brit raveups and abstracted postpunk nihilism. Singer/guitarist Kevin Boyer seems perfectly apt in a void between the doomed detachment of Rust Belt punk pioneer David Thomas and the uncompromised grace and confusion of Wipers mainman Greg Sage. Among the many highpoints on Nothing Fits, “Potato” is a nervy, precision workout digging into themes of oversexed libido crossed by vegetables under a knife. “Underwater To” bears a certain kind of depth that exudes its scruffy exterior and ultimately reads like a love letter to youth but could mean so much more.

In all their abandon and eschewing of volume constraints and neatly recorded tracks, Tyvek gets it right and nails the nuance of punk perfection but never tries too hard. They succeed by simply doing it. People who find Jack White’s projects just not scuzzy enough, those looking for the kind of irradiated pop keen of Japandroids, or anyone who ever enjoyed Buffalo’s late lamented Baseball Furies will find a lot to love in Nothing Fits. The vinyl includes a card to download the tracks as digital files. No matter how much you might try to live the “analog only” lifestyle, this too is a very good thing.

—donny kutzbach