Review: Back! The Sonics tear it up at TLA

Between 1965 and 1967, the Sonics - the wiggy garage rock toast of Tacoma, Wash. - made three blunt, gut-punching albums of raw bar-band primitivism. In the garage world, these wiry workouts were as crucial as those by the Seeds or 13th Floor Elevators. In a greater sense, the Sonics, led by epically unhinged vocalist Jerry Roslie, could out-punk Brit rivals in the Who if they set their minds to it - which they didn't, instead disintegrating by the 1960s' end.

Roslie and fellow original Sonics Larry Parypa (guitar) and Rob Lind (tenor saxophone) just released their first new full-length in decades - This Is the Sonics - and picked up where they left off and hit TLA on Sunday night.

If anything could have steered crowds from Game of Thrones, it was the equally bloodlusting Sonics. With the kinetic sounds of raging rave-ups and hammered organs from their past, they kicked out the jams - from the pushing-too-hard punk of fuzz-toned "Boss Hoss" to stripped-bare covers of such R&B greats as Richard Berry - with white trash aplomb. They ripped the garishness from Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin'" and left nothing but the twitching guts. They looked like funeral parlor managers while doing so, but they blasted forth furiously, belying the wear and tear of age.

Bassist/high screeching singer Freddie Dennis catapulted new songs such as "Sugaree" into the molten mix. Saxophonist Lind (who doubled on breathy harmonica for the salty set "Cinderella") spoke-sung "You've Got Your Head on Backwards" as if running hard down Tobacco Road, and went for a long solo stroll on the cocktail punky "I Got Your Number (666)." As for Roslie, he's still a huffing, manic singer and spookily reedy organ player, whether the subject was the raunchy "Be a Woman," the stuttering "Dirty Robber" or the soulful, Leslie pedal-affected roar of "He's Waitin'."

Openers Barrence Whitfield & the Savages and the Residuals raised the bar for the Sonics. Whitfield is a master R&B&P (for punk) vocalist and led his rough, tumbling band through the screechy rock and roll of "Bit by Bit" and the slow stewing soul of "I'm Sad About It." Philly's Residuals had a brusque garage sound of their own, highlighted by a panicky cover of the Stooges' "I Got a Right."