Nothing Stops Moving

Like the title -- which paraphrases Newton's First Law -- the first full length by Gingersol starts on fire and continues to seer its way into your bones. Nothing Stops Moving, simply put, is an absolutely blazing rock & roll record. The band updates the sort of instrumental heft of Crazy Horse: part lilt, part plod, but always delectably meaty in both instrumental textures and in melodies. Gingersol also happen to have their own Neil Young in Steve Tagliere, whose songs are so deliciously pop that they are instantly lovable, and yet so nourishingly rock that they serve as sustenance long after the music has stopped playing. Nothing Stops Moving actually features the second incarnation of the band, with Tagliere as the single bond between this version and the one that had previously recorded the stellar 1995 Extended Play EP. It is a return that was some time in the making. Tagliere and his brother Phil spent most of the middle part of the 1990s holding the original revolving-door quartet together while trying to build a name on the Los Angeles rock scene. After a few frustrating rounds with the music business, the bruised band splintered, leaving Tagliere to home-record a hushed, solo-album catharsis, 1998's exquisite Trust Myself. This official debut finds Gingersol returning as a reinvigorated, stripped-down unit. In truth, it may be somewhat disingenuous to call them a band. The album is primarily the brainchild of Tagliere and cohort Seth Rothschild, who, in addition to playing a roomful of instruments, also produced the recording. Several drummers provided the beats, and Louie Ruiz contributed much of the bass playing. It doesn't really make a difference whether it is a proper band or not, though, because the music is fabulous from end to end. Clearly Tagliere, already an outstanding songwriter, experienced a dramatic evolution in the intervening years between the EP and Nothing Stops Moving. He shows much more stylistic diversity -- from the rugged pop/rock of "Help Push the Car" and "I Don't See How" to the joyously loping "Tuck Me In," the churning, cloistered "Handcuffs," and the dirge-like "Do You Burn?" -- and the hooks are never short of exceptional from beginning to end. His pop melodies ebb and flow, are alternately tough and beautifully delicate, and invariably make each song memorable. Rothschild gives the album a big, shiny modern production without sanding down any of the rough rootsy edges with which the band earned their initial recognition. He punctuates and individuates the songs in subtle ways -- banjo, unobtrusive synthesizers, Wurlitzer -- and yet instills an expansive, atmospheric sound that characterizes the entire album. It may just be a new beginning, but Nothing Stops Moving is already the sound of a band putting down payments on its place in the rock & roll pantheon.