Wine, Wine, Wine

Built on a swinging, almost stumbling groove that owes more to a 1950s juke joint than to any contemporary punk template, this track finds The Gories at their most blues-drunk. The guitar interplay between Collins and Dan Kroha is loose and conversational — not sloppy, but not tight in any conventional sense either, landing in that rare zone where imprecision becomes its own kind of feel. The chord changes lurch forward with the momentum of someone who has been drinking and refuses to stop moving. Peg O'Neill's drumming drives everything from the center out, simple but insistent, keeping the whole thing from spinning apart. Collins's voice here is more relaxed than combative, adopting the weary swagger of someone retelling a story they've told before and still enjoy telling. The song is essentially about the ritual pleasure of alcohol as social glue, a theme as old as the blues itself, and the Gories don't modernize it — they reach back into it and pull out something humid and smoky. There is no irony in their approach to this material; the reverence is genuine even when the delivery is ragged. This is music for a bar that doesn't card anyone, with sticky floors and a jukebox that costs a quarter. Late evening, summer, somewhere a long way from anywhere that takes itself seriously.