The Dirty Lungs

Somebody Here’s Going Crazy is the long-awaited debut album from Birmingham’s The Dirty Lungs. Chock-full of wiggling delights and mind-expanding shreds recalling psyche greats like The Blue Cheer and Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Dirty Lungs wrap it up with a hip-shaking swagger clearly rooted in The Dirty South.
What sets The Dirty Lungs apart from the other psychedelia is their sense of soul, and Crazy has plenty of rhythm and blooze. “Tired Of This Company,” “Runnin’,” and the track “Sit Tight” best exemplify The Dirty Lungs’ rowdy, acid-drenched boogie while brooding numbers like “1000 Suns” and “Tiger and Its Prey” ably maintain malice and groove. “Sit Tight,” a strangely cathartic ode to white-knuckled restlessness, manages to blend Galaxie 500 and Black Sabbath— no small feat.

And there we find the The Dirty Lungs greatest strength: Reassembling the history of psychedelic rock while sidestepping both pastiche and artifice in order to make way for a great time. Think of them as revisionist cartographers, charting the most pleasurable routes between rock-and-roll delights. That sense of economy is pervasive throughout Somebody Here’s Going Crazy, affecting everything from the lean running time, its colorful use of recording studio razzle dazzle, and the cover art: Crazy is packaged as a blank canvas that literally comes sealed with a miniature pack of crayons. Aspiring designers can color to their heart’s content or embrace its Duchampian glory. Either way, you win.

-Jim Fahy
- Thicket Magazine