Jim and the French Vanilla “Afraid of the House” 2017. Dirtnap Records. Jim and the French Vanilla is the side project of Jim Blaha from the Minneapolis-based “extraterrestrial backyard surf party” noise rock band The Blind Shake. It’s one of a few side projects for the prodigious Blaha brothers; Jim, along with brother Mike, also are in Shadow in the Cracks and Mike also has BLAHA who we are going to see Friday night at the Cactus Club here in Milwaukee.

Afraid of the House has a lot of the same qualities as The Blind Shake’s material: buzzy lo-fi guitars, a chugging rhythm, noise rock distortion and a certain tense level that I described in an earlier blog post as “the bastard child of Jimi Hendrix and Jack White on a cocktail of ‘shrooms and amphetamines” (I was a little tipsy at a Blind Shake show when I wrote that). Despite that level of intensity, the flavor overall is a bit lighter, playful at times even. While the tracks “When You’re Down,” “Grow Like Rabbits” (my favorite on the album) and “Psychic Killer” are ferocious in the Blind Shake spirit, other songs like “I’m Just Sitting Here,”  “Back Home” and “Lonely Man” are almost bouncingly bright (in comparison. It’s still pretty intense), reminding me of some Sonic Youth songs from the early 90′s: noise rock with a nod to pop melody. I also dig the lo-fi psychedelic touches like the track “Not Even War” and the mini-instrumental “Green Curtains.”