There is a kind of magic that can only be created when a truly great band plays in someone’s garage. The last time I saw Pets, I was sitting on top of my car, legs through the sunroof, kissed by rain so thin it was almost mist. Barely cold enough for a sweater, it was as perfect as a November evening in Sacramento could be. Allison and Derek didn’t need a smoke machine that night; bright red light amplified their shadows through the mist. After a set of mesmerizing riffs, clever vocals, and fuzz, I was giddy, excited to see whatever the band had in store next. That was 2 years ago; now the wait is over. I sat down with the King and Queen of Sacramento Fuzz to talk about their creative process and their new album “Dig The Skull”.
“Punk just wasn’t cutting it anymore,” Derek tells me. Inspired by the likes of The Raveonettes and The Dandy Warhols, in 2003, Derek and Allison bought hollowbodies and started the band. From the band’s inception, they had a vision. “The fuzz, the distortion, the reverb, that was from day one.” Pets found in just a few years what some bands search decades for: a sound. Instantly recognizable, their layered vocals, looped drum machines, and fuzzy drone paint some of the greatest artistic successes of Sacramento DIY. Their music was the soundtrack of my teenage years, driving through endless Sacramento sprawl, hypnotized by fuzz noisy enough to drown out the silence of suburbia.
Now Pets are back with a new 13-track LP, better than ever. Created over the last 10 years, “Dig The Skull” is a labor of love. “During [Covid] lockdown, we would spend hours having a good time recording vocals and some drum stuff that we’ve never done before… recording it [at home] and taking our time just the two of us was awesome. It was so much fun,” Derek tells me. “We just go in there when inspiration strikes, we spend a lot of time not going in there, so hence the slow process, but we don’t feel like we can force it to happen.”
Album Art by Matt K. Shrugg
Listeners can feel time, effort, and love put into the album. From short, driving, punky tracks like “Ten Eyed Snakes” to longer, experimental songs like the six-minute “Leaver In Lipstick” this album is Pets fully fleshed out. Every aspect of the band comes together in this project, no creative impulse held back. Allison and Derek’s voices, another instrument in a pleasantly cacophonic symphony, rarely take center stage allowing for the droning bass and fuzz to carry the listener from track to track, giving the illusion of a 46-minute suite. “The lyrics are usually just an additional sound, an instrument more than something wanting to be said. We just wanted to be clever and sound cool and go along with the music.” Derek says. “First we’ll come up with the riff and the structure for a song that we like and then add words to it later.”
When the opening track, “Judy’s Priest (Threw a Rager)” fades in with a space-age riff as the drum machine starts to loop, you can’t help but dance. “(Just a) Quick Forever” keeps the energy up, and as feedback bleeds in the next track, “Robotany” starts with a church-bell like riff announcing the featured vocals of the band’s longtime friend Jsun Atoms. Derek, Allison, and Jsun created a five-minute track that two-minute hardcore purists will put on repeat. Fuzz-ballad “Lampin’” surfs through four minutes with heavy drum beats as the band’s layered vocals blend into one. “Leaver in Lipstick” allows itself time, stretched out riffs, drones, and a shaker fill pauses between vocals; by minute six you’re completely sunk into the world of psych-garage that Pets have created. While maintaining the heaviness of “Leaver in Lipstick”, “Ten Eyed Snakes” juxtaposes the previous song, a punchy track just over two minutes, is reminiscent of Sonic Youth at their peak. “Sour Gazy” and “Honeytide,” with vocals that swim through the songs, echoing and distorting, are unmistakably Pets tracks: delightful and fuzzy; as Derek told me, “this is the only way we know how to sound.” “Mind Your Beeswax” is an upbeat, danceable track that resolves into the grooviest moment of the record. “Thriller Killer” and “Nite Phreaking” immediately made it to my Halloween party playlist, two fun tracks that rock incredibly hard in classic Pets fashion. “Hope, You Know” pays homage to an inspiration with lyrics about “Make[ing] a wish upon a Mazzy Star.” Closing out the album is a standout song, “Cool Religion.” Allison and Derek singing in unison with an echoing drone behind them is an utterly satisfying way to end this journey through ten years of creativity. The track ends similarly to how the album opens, making the last 46 minutes feel like a fuzzy, psychedelic dream.
The Pets sound is classic but fresh, and with this new album they go deep, exploring the breadth of their creativity. “Dig The Skull” is serious about fun, a record to spin at a party or to submerge yourself into while driving in your hometown. This winter, “Dig The Skull” is the answer to cold days and long nights.