The kind of distortion that edges the vocals and most of the instruments on the album "Break Your Arm for Evolution" (Alive) tags SSM as garage-rock or psychedelia, and most of the songs would go nicely with a liquid-blob light show. But this three-man band - John Szymanski on keyboards, Dave Shettler on drums and Marty Morris on guitar - doesn't stay within any particular school or era. SSM also toys with electro, progressive rock and punk-funk. What the songs share is a cantankerous rock spirit and, behind it, musings on life and death, from "Let's Make a Baby" to thoughts like "Before long you're gone, so prolong the inevitable" - which is tucked into a song called "Start Dancing."
- Jon Pareles / The New York Times
Opener SSM [surprised] the crowd with an unusual and delightfully schizoid take on Motor City rock. Psychedelia mingled with kraut-rock as the avant-pop trio shifted gears with synth freakouts and odd time signatures that managed to be both experimental and accessible at the same time.
- The Boston Herald
Since SSM is a Detroit garage-rock band composed of three Detroit garage-rock veterans, it's fitting that the group's second album opens with a song titled "Deja Vu." Yet not everything on "Break Your Arm for Evolution" has been heard before -- at least not quite this way. Named for the musicians's initials, SSM can power a bluesy stomp just as heartily as the former bands of keyboardist John Szymanski (the Hentchmen), drummer Dave Shettler (the Sights) and guitarist Marty Morris (the Cyril Lords). But the trio also ventures into funk, synth-pop, glam-rock and psychedelia. "Start Dancing" is representative of SSM's style. The song opens with pure synthetics: pings and coos arrayed against a tinny pulse. The accompaniment remains all electronic after the vocals enter, but the guitar and drums gradually take their usual place, and the tune becomes a rocker -- though the track isn't the album's most traditional one. (That would be the punky "Emotional Tourist.") "Break Your Arm for Evolution" certainly isn't technocratic enough for electro purists, but SSM can show garage-rock buffs that there's more than one way to start dancing.
- The Washinton Post
SSM's blend of electronic sheen, prog rock sonic wanderlust, and punk rock wallop remains a potent combination on their second full-length album, 2008's Break Your Arm for Evolution, and if this doesn't push the group's musical boundaries terribly far beyond what they accomplished on their previous releases, it demonstrates they're writing and playing better than ever. Marty Morris, Dave Shettler, and John Szymanski have learned the fine art of honoring their myriad musical influences while twisting the shapes into new angles, and though the common link between this album's nine tunes is that you can dance to all of them, they each shake it out in different and distinct ways. The geeked-out guitar-fueled gangsterism of "Regenerate Your Face" probably wouldn't occur to very many acts besides these guys, "Déjà Vu" is so new wave you can practically hear the skinny tie rustling against the cheesy synthesizers, "Start Dancing" could pass for a long-lost Suicide track in dim light, "Marian" is a tribute to some righteous soul fan that generates a potent booty-shaking groove, and "Now We're Six" takes A.A. Milne places he's never been before. The production (by SSM with some help from Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys) manages to sound full-bodied, clear, and just the right kind of trashy at the same time, and the jams hit a graceful balance between funky and clever -- Break Your Arm for Evolution is that rare album that promises if you free your ass your brain will follow, and the best moments deliver on that heady guarantee.
- Mark Deming / All Music Guide
Take Detroit garage punk rock ‘n roll and add a fine touch of that same city’s soul as a starting point then throw the whole thing right out the window and when the dust has settled and your mind has focussed a little, go back out and get it all back, brush it down then fizz it up and you have one hell of a three piece band. Deja Vu all over again and horizons are expanded. Sounds and flavours morphed in to some kind of post-new wave that you never really heard before. There’s moments here that really are right out beyond, no deja vu, this is not all over again. Detroit rock and soul and bits of kraut rock keys and transforming synth pop crashing in to the MC5 and hell, the Motor City threw up another one! And all of it drenched in the kind of cool as f soul Sly and The Family dished out at Woodstock - along with quirky Devo synths and so much musical guts and bits from here and there and sit back you got a tag. This is garage punk rock like you never heard it before. Clever energy that doesn’t get too clever, a band soaked in their heritage and their fizzing synths and their reconstruction of deconstructed popular music and what you have is one highly original sound from one very original band. The whole thing regenerating in your face without every losing sight of the simply constructed convention of the rock song . Brilliant album, inspired and inspiring.
- Organ Magazine
Is this album a self-inflicted test to see if de-evolution can be willed into being? An admission of futility in the face of a dearth of other options? An inspired experiment?
Well, as evidenced on SSM's second proper full-length — let's go with "all the above." The record starts simply enough, with a quasi-conventional rough house analog throwback stomper called "Déjà Vu." It's a Farfisa-and-"punk-as-shit"-monotone-vocals-led number that reels and spirals as it rocks along. After that, Break Your Arm... throws you in the deep water of wildly inventive, wildly unpredictable jams that alternately leave you stunned, dancing, bent, sweating or hitting "repeat" to try to figure out just what exactly they were doing on that last track. This is a rock record that could absolutely only be made by people from Detroit, circa now. SSM throw away the rawk rules here (although "Emotional Tourist" is a full-sprint, bleeding overdrive banger), remaining true to their subversive spirit.
After the woozy march of "Johnny's Holding for the First Time" (ha!), you get nailed with the first of the album's trio of centerpiece jams. "Start Dancing" kicks it off, hitting you with Morris intoning and then repeating the cryptic, downbeat refrain "Daddy won't leave/If you don't stop dancing"
Not content to merely pollute your buzz with introspection, the album's centerpiece trilogy then really takes off with "Marian." The latter's a post-post-industrial Madchester workout that starts with a sound reminiscent of hyperactive whales mating, before locking into the kind of groove the Stone Roses would have killed for — that is, the kind of swing that blurs the line between dance music, practice space rock 'n' roll freakout, mechanics and magic. It's good. It's that good. They then return to planet earth for the spacious robo-boogie of "Let's Make a Baby," neatly rounding out the libidinal conflict with lyrics that read alternately '60s garage naïve and then emotionally (and astrologically) warped.
SSM pump up the volume not simply to be loud, but to amplify a freaked-out perspective, chronicling the modern sound of a fucked-up place with as much honest idiosyncrasy as Joy Division did in 1980 Manchester, Os Mutantes did in Brazil '68 or, well, Black Merda did in 1970s Detroit. If anything, Break Your Arm For Evolution is the sound of enlightened craftsmen working their machines over, extracting sweat and bile, paranoia, swing and joy from the guts of organs, drums, guitars, digital toys and seemingly any other knob within reaching distance. As recorded by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, Break Your Arm is more immediate and forceful than SSM's debut album. That immediacy is in the songs, and this set is as fine and full of powerful strangeness and truth as any you're apt to hear. Now, go and get it at your local record shop.
- Chris Handyside / Metro Times
Imagine if aliens came down took said favorite garage rockers, took their Stooges filled record collections and cryogenically froze them only to be thawed out in the year 2050. Still youthful looking and full of scruffy bearded vigor, SSM would be given futuristic guitars, organs and drums by their alien captors and told to create music. The result would probably sound something like Break Your Arm For Evolution. A romp in Iggy-esq, slowed down, Hentch rock and roll, the band’s overall sound is something that is catchy, groovy and danceable, all while maintaining the basic rock esthetic. Tracks like “Déjà Vu,” “Regenerate Your Face” and “Now We’re Six” are trance inducing psychedelic jams that meet Fun House type grooves and would be perfect for your next drug session. While these songs do a good job of showing SSM variety of sounds, tunes like “Emotional Tourist” are the group at their most garage. Showing where they started out, they do a traditional twelve bar blues cranked up to 11 and Szymanski’s organ works on overdrive. This is a standout jam, but doesn’t fully represent what SSM is working towards with the record as a whole.
Personally for myself, the more interesting numbers on Break Your Arm For Evolution come in the form of dance numbers like “Underground,” “Start Dancing” and “Marian.” Taking the more danceable side of post-punk from Public Image Limited and meshing it with 80’s pop projects like Gary Numan and Kraftwerk’s synth laden material, SSM creates a killer sound that blows most conventional stuff out of the water.
- Boogie Chillin
It's common knowledge that you can't teach an old garage band new tricks. Or, at least I thought it was common knowledge that garage bands forever stayed in the garage, until I put on this new track by SSM, "Start Dancing." On this number from their second album for Alive Records, John Szymanski, Dave Shettler, and Marty Morris have updated a steadfastly rigid genre with a synthetic, robot groove that bridges the divide between Detroit's storied histories of techno and garage. Szymanski's cool, detached plea to stay on the dance floor isn't the most convincing order to get down -- it's as robotic as the groove behind him. Perhaps, that's the point. With the news of a Japanese robot who can play the violin, why shouldn't robots be able to dance, too?
- I Rock Cleveland
SSM’s 2006 debut totally forced the issue, ramming a prog proboscis into any available garage rock orifice. Gross, right? But the record totally worked, particularly when the Detroit trio’s flair for the lyrical fantastic really jibed with Marty Morris’s rock-n-roll moan (he’s from the Cyril Lords, remember), John Szymanski’s rack of vintage keys (Szymanski from the Hentchman, that is), and drummer-about-town Dave Shettler, who propelled the whole bit from an electro-disco land of willing women and readily available drugs. Shit was addicting, especially live. Now, remember what was written about the band’s set at the Detour Launch Party. “If psyche-garage-stoner-disco isn’t an official genre, it will be by the time SSM release their new record in 2008.” No lie there. The mechanized and caterwauling center riff of “Deja Vu” is what plays in the heads of those who do the robot, or maybe the tin heads of all robots, while “Regenerate Your Face” builds from blowsy-stoned riffs that ooze off the fruit of the moon. “Start Dancing” threads a motorik beat into a chiming chorus built from 60s garage rock, then dissipates like oxygen released in a vacuum, while “Now We’re Six” and the anxious gas pedal headache of “Emotional Tourist” wind some hooky crackle into the mix to ensure a little of what the first album’s experiments occasionally lacked. Break Your Arm for Evolution still turns star charts into question marks, but it grooves clean like the 2.0 version of anything. SSM aren’t just talking about an evolution.
- Detour Magazine
Now Wave
It’s a new first in my journalism world. I’m on a conference call with two of Detroit’s elite rockers, SSM’s Marty Morris and John Szymanski, and I’ve never quite experienced an interview like this.
No, it’s not the guys, Morris is sick and Szymanski is here in full monotone glory, but they aren’t what's weird. This conference call invention is shocking and we're all not used to talking to so many people on the phone at once. “We could get a couple more people on here and have a huge phone sex orgy,” Szymanski says.
SSM is currently on tour with the Von Bondies, taking in the sights of the beautiful Northwest and loving every second of it. Every second, that is, where they aren’t bombarded by shitty White Stripes-esque opening bands and Vermont hippies wearing Northface gear. “It was soooo bad, dude,” Morris says of their Jack and Meg imitation openers in Burlington. “One song was called ‘Black Panties’ and the only lyrics were ‘Black Panties.’” By going to a veritable no man's land (neither SSM or the VBs have played in Vermont), the show was a rough go with only 50 people showing up. “Lots of North Face clothes,” Szymanski says. “There were some dreads, too,” Morris adds. “Lots of hats with ear flaps on them.”
The idea of a Detroit garage rock supergroup is nothing new. There was a time when Mick Collins played in The Sirens and the hot minute that saw Shaw, Meier, Melina and Klein all playing in The Breakdowns. However, what has not been done is a supergroup that has contained the same three members for its entire existence. Enter Detroit’s ultimate power trio, Szymanski, Shettler and Morris, or SSM. In the face of its members playing in probably five other bands, the boys of SSM decided to start a new project to work on more experimental material. “I always thought that Marty’s guitar playing really went with what I did on keyboard,” John says of how the lineup came together. “Dave (Shettler) was really the first guy who wanted to play drums with us and it just worked out well.”
Experimenting with the sound of all their prior bands and other '80s bands, SSM hit upon a groove; one that you could dance and rock out to all at the same time. Yet, what would the garage rock elitists say? This was something completely new — the now wave of modern rock ‘n’ roll. “I’ve had friends of mine come to the show and then I see them waving goodbye after like four songs,” Szymanski says of some people's expectations of SSM. “That’s fine ... not everyone is going to like it.”
Released on Alive Records, SSM’s new record, Break Your Arm For Evolution, isn't for everyone. This is no slight against SSM. “Let’s Make A Baby,” “Déjà Vu” and “Underground” are like weird exercises in Lee Perry reggae, Martian punk rock and Justice-worthy dance tracks. Unfortunately, it's because of close-minded folks that SSM will be thought of as merely a side project, which is easily recognized as unjust after just one listen to the band's latest work.
- Real Detroit Weekly
The three men who make up SSM have roots in the midwestern garage rock underground. Keyboardist John Szymanski comes from the Hentchmen, drummer Dave Shettler from the Sights, and guitarist Marty Morris from the Cyril Lords. They recruited Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys to record this debut album. And their label, Alive, distributes through Bomp Records. Yet, despite all these indications, "Break Your Arm for Evolution" is not a garage rock record in any traditional Sonics/Stooges/Dolls sense. Rather, it has shreds of funk, swathes of guitar-soloing cock metal, and intervals of synthy dance beats. It mutates from song to song, shifting from the heavy sludge of “Regenerate Your Face” to the electro-lightness of “Start Dancing” without skipping a beat.
- Jennifer Kelly / Pop Matters
By nature, garage rock is fuzzy, not fussy, and followers of trashy '60s punk aren't generally known for musicianship or sonic adventurism.
The Detroit trio SSM -- named for Motor City mainstays John Szymanski, Dave Shettler and Marty Morris -- is a rare exception. On its second album, the band has once again created hard-rocking headphone music, mixing raw Stooges guitars with fidgety licks of sci-fi synth.
SSM's mutant sound comes in a variety of tempos and textures, and the dry electronic pulse of "Start Dancing" somehow sits comfortably alongside the percussive free-for-all and dull throb of "Marian."
Some of the songs push five and six minutes, and though SSM knows how to write verses and choruses, the tunes almost always wriggle free from their structures, allowing the musicians to stretch out and play. Even a quickie blues stomp like "Now We're Six," perhaps the disc's most formulaic offering, manages to feel formless.
The constant experimentation is both an asset and a liability, and it's easy to get lost in the group's more nebulous instrumental passages. If SSM's neo-garage peers too often color within the lines, "Break Your Arm For Evolution" charges forward with a modern-art degree and two fistfuls of crayons.
Even when it's a mess -- as with the atonal freak-out that ends "Underground" -- it sure is colorful.
- Kenneth Partridge / Courant.com
SSM deviate from the classic Detroit rock band mold. They have mixed garage rock with psychedelia, electric dance sounds and prog rock and come out with a unique sound…The new album sounds like Daft Punk-meet-Electric Six-meet-The Seeds, with a couple emotional ballads thrown in as well as some pop-dance tracks.
- The Aquarian Weekly
SSM, play a riveting combination of electronic and psychedelic garage rock—physical proof of which can be found on the trio’s latest, Break Your Arm for Evolution.
- Time Out New York
There are two differences between SSM's "LP1" (Shmosz ) and countless garage-rock revivals: the sound is scruffier and the songs are smarter. John Szymanski (keyboards, vocals), Dave Shettler (drums) and Marty Morris (guitar), have been playing garage rock in other Detroit bands; after a month of collaboration, they recorded this album in two days. Unruly analog keyboards and dinky rhythm machines define the sound as much as overloaded fuzz-tone guitar, and the tunes slip free of three-chord orthodoxy. The old garage-rock lust is there, but so are tidings of apocalypse and sardonic opening lines like "Sorry I never sent no flowers when she overdosed." Despite the vintage equipment, this is no 1960's revival; it's a warped reinvention.
- Jon Pareles / The New York Times
Garage-rock revivalists can get tedious fast, but the legacy gets transfigured by bands like SSM, a three-man band from Detroit that brilliantly twists its chosen genre: with a drum machine, with synthesizer swoops, with startling tempo changes and goofy electronic effects.
- Jon Pareles / The New York Times SXSW 2006 Journal
It is hard to articulate how much ROTR loves this band, who were interviewed in issue 3 of the zine. As a general rule we love Detroit. SSM are scuzzy and futuristic keeping the garagey edge. John Szymanski’s synth fiddlings (he knows how to use a screw driver), the crunchy guitars of Marty Morris and playful drumming perfection from David Shettler mean so much more because they are so genuine, with not an ounce of pretense. SSM are not afraid to write pop songs - but they are disguised beneath wonderfully complex layers of punk fuzz and pyschedelic breakdowns. They sold us a beer soaked t-shirt for $5. Best band EVER.
- Riot On The Rocks
When John Szymanski,Dave Shettler, and Marty "Mother" Morris up and left the Hentchmen, Paybacks, Sights and Cyril Lords to tour with no less than those Black Keys, perhaps the most aurally arresting Detroit amalgamation since the MC5 themselves was born. Bravely mashing Simply Saucer with Blue Cheer one moment, Plastic Ono Iggy with Blondie the next, then dragging Holland/Dozier/Holland screaming towards Devo just for good measure, SSM create insightful sounds which, thankfully, are NOT for the musically faint or fickle, yet stand incongruously straight and solid despite their wickedly wide source-base. In less obtuse words then? If you've ever wondered what would or Should! have become of those not-so-young Rascals, or how Beck might act if he plugged all the way in for a change, then this disc, and this trio, are totally up your valley. Meanwhile, should Nardwuar's Evaporators ever get the call from JXL to produce the next posthumous Elvis Number One, hopefully Messrs. Szymanski, Shettler and Morris will be along for that joyride as well!
- Gary Pig Gold / Ear Candy
Dig the weireded out album cover? You'll certainly dig the tuneage. SSM (or Szymanski, Shettler, and Morris for those not into brevity) are a garage rock trio out of Detroit Rock City. Scratch that. SSM are a trio who do something like garage rock, but something entirely different at the same time. Is it electro-garage rock? Is it psychedelic-stoner-dance rock? I don't know quite exactly what it is, except to say It rocks.
- I Rock Cleveland
The garage rock revivalists from Detroit take the reinvention of classic rock to a whole new level, blending fuzz guitars with synth and drum machines to create a formidable alliance.... Their eponymous debut is a psychedelic experience. Atmospheric tracks like "2012" and "The Fourth" are spacey and disconnected trips. "Ain't Love" and "Candy Loving" are groovy, electro-pop romps, studies in self-control (can you keep from dancing?). Dan Auerbach, Black Keys guitarist extraordinaire and SSM friend-the bands toured together last winter-lends his talents in "Dinosaur," a snarling tempo changer.
- Lisa Stahl / TheMagazine
Review on Gonzai (France)
Feature on the Fake magazine site (Switerzland)
Review in Les Inrockuptibles (France)
Made up of members from The Cyril Lords and The Hentchmen, with their new project SSM move beyond the familiar three-chord duties of other local bands: recorded with the help of the very good Dan Auerbach from Akron, Ohio's Black Keys, their debut limited edition album is awash with bursts of energy and moves into industrial punk territory with krautrock influences. Like curators of a museum with a small but enthusiastic clientele, the band evidently feel a genuine love for what they're up to, and it's hard not to be stirred by their passion.
- The Guardian (UK)
In some ways Detroit trio SSM sound like they're trying to be a nouveau disco band; they have the beat and hi-hat heat, but otherwise they miss the target entirely. Not that you can say exactly what it is these guys are up to: Their full name, Szymanski Shettler Morris, is a straight 70s-prog nod, and the artwork for their self-titled debut on Alive rips off the nude-girls-on-rocks thing from Houses of the Holy--only these ladies are buxom, have cockatiel heads, and are posed next to a spaceship against a nuclear sky. The band members all came up in Detroit's garage scene--they've played in the Hentchmen, the Sights, and the Cyril Lords--but now they're riffing on some fardled deep-space electro-rock. It's like watching Brainiac prance around in Mick Jagger's football pants and Capezios: oh so wrong, but somehow oh so right.
- Jessica Hopper / Chicago Reader
If electroclash had left a dent, it would have been for sounding something like this. Garage punk trio SSM have followed their pants-dropping debut record with this six-tracker, and damn if these boys ain't doing it right. EP-1 contains one remix and five new tracks (three of which were once again engineered by THE BLACK KEYS' Dan Auerbach); opener "Put Me In" sounds like LCD SOUNDSYSTEM but more organic, with real flesh and bones it's a dance floor breaker, if DJ's only knew their heads form their asses. Second cut "Fiction Rock + Roll" goes back to basics, most of the dance elements are left on your heels and its sound regresses to a tiny soundproof garage. It is with songs like this that SSM actually sounds like the trio it is, the music is still grand but capable of deafening frequencies. Formed by John Szymanski (HENTCHMEN, PAYBACKS), Dave Shetler (THE SIGHTS) and Marty Morris (CYRIL LORDS); SSM sounds like a fuzzy and furry 60's psychedelic combo, if only those damn hippies would not have ruined it all with all that patchouli and songs about wearing flowers when you move to San Francisco. Damn them. But this is no mere revivalist act, if anything these boys sound like they've had too much Kool Aid. Slow seducer track "Belle Isle Daze" is a delicious blend of fuzz strumming and ? THE MYSTERIANS type key work, while "Country City" jerks itself from several positions; before finding solace in organic dance drums and rocking guitars. "You'll Be Glad You Did" is childish, and as such it plays, it foams at the mouth, it throws stuff right at you and in the end shits itself amidst the milky way. Good stuff all around.
- Hansel Merchor / Deaf Sparrow
SSM follow up their debut, eponymous, full-length album with this six-song mini-set, cleverly titled EP, Vol. 1, and yet again defy anyone to describe their sound. The rollicking "Fiction Rock + Roll" and the slamming "Country City" posits them on the punk side of garage rock, which is where most exasperated critics tend to lump them. "Ha, that's what you think," the band cry triumphantly, slinging into "You'll Be Glad You Did," a synth pop-goes-pop-punk ditty that could have been written by Vince Clarke, or the Ramones for that matter. To further muddy the waters the EP suddenly falls straight into space rock territory. The remix of the album track "Put Me In" has new wave pretensions, too, but a decidedly funky flare, and even a hint of proto industrial fuzz and drone. But the trio aren't done yet. "Bell Isle Daze," is way too slow for garage, but you can hear its antecedents within regardless, along with fabulous psychedelic organ and wah-wah guitar. Simultaneously laid-back and insistent, thanks to the spacey atmosphere and a new wave drum machine beat, here SSM are, perhaps, at their genre-bending best. Until they take "Daze" into "Dub" on the final track. Onscreen it just looks goofy, while the lyrics are decidedly loopy, but on disc it's brilliant, absolutely inspired, in fact, and a ton of fun besides.
- Jo-Ann Greene / AMG
EP-1 blasts listeners off into a space adventure of exotic monster woman, silver shiny ray guns that shoot out "shake your ass or die" lasers, and a spaceship that only runs on bar beer. It's the world every young rock fan wants to be a part of. SSM reminds us all in this current nation of crying man-children and indie rock pastels that music can be fun. It doesn't have to be "prove you can get into fucking Harvard" bullshit. You can just dance with a hot chick in a tight shirt and have a good time. No existential whimpering allowed. And even when things get a little quieter (the new "Belle Isle Daze"), it's more like having a cigarette out on the porch with your best friend. Things are cool and mellow, baby.
- Zach Hoskins / Modern Pea Pod
This Detroit three piece belts out really great tunes, playing back and forth between electronic synthesized sounds and traditional rock deliveries. The unique thing about their sound is it manages to straddle the line between the two forms amazingly evenhandedly, swinging back and forth between electro clash barrages, intriguing keyboard tones, and good old fashioned rock guitar with a deftness that defies categorization. The best of both worlds might be a good way to describe their raw yet complex sound. I can't remember when I've heard a more tasteful mix of order and chaos. It has bursts of weirdness and noise but still remains accessible and driving. This is easily one of the most interesting and likable records I've heard in recent memory, and it stands up on repeated listens. High fives and kudos to the fine people at Alive Records for putting this out. 9 on a scale of 1-11.
- The Swede / / Culture Bunker
Opening with a hail of echoed guitar and synths, the debut album by SSM is packed with dense guitar riffs, sing-a-long chorus, strange keyboard interludes and enough attitude to carry it all of in gloriously confused style. The first two tracks maintain a power pop manifesto with "Exit Strategy" being particularly strong. Third track "Ain't Love" changes the focus however, sounding like a UK new wave song, all angular and keyboard driven. From then on in, it's no-holds barred, as the band suck in influences from all points from the last thirty years and blend them into a melodic, unexpected and cohesive whole, creating a highly entertaining album for your ears.
- Simon Lewis / Terrascope Rumbles
To describe this current trio as a garage band would be to serve them with an unjust sentence. To describe them as a temper tantrum of various degrees would probably be more accurate. SSM have created a sound that could merely be described as original, challenging and fresh. It is obvious that their creative output comes from deep within their souls. As a collective unit they have nothing to prove to anyone and it shows that their love for different genres and arrangements leads to deviceful product. Adding Art-rock, garage and chaos to the mixture has spurned a cd that would rival any terrorist bomb. KaBOoM! Liquid ecstasy banged into the bloodstream makes for a high of such bombastic proportions that this trio may have created their own genre. Filled with analog keyboards, rhythm machines and sonic body strapped bombs. Controlled chaos bitten by the gods of art rock and pumped for a wall of sound.
- Demonseed / Sugarbuzzmagazine
Another Detroit supergroup in the making? Not even close to super group but that really isn't the point. Thankfully SSM, exceed expectations and delivers a solid debut effort. Part psychdelia, part new wave, part funk, part shoe gaze. SSM is made up of members of The Hentchmen, the Paybacks, the Sights, and the Cyril Lords. All these bands have been churning out 60's pop and garage rock just as long as White and Benson's "other" projects. Their stories and their successes are vastly different stories, but John Szymanski, Dave Shettler and Marty Morris' collaboration doesn't have those same expectations or pressure that is "put upon" The Raconteurs. Szymanski and Morris drive the the sound of SSM. The band was originally conceived by Szymanski while he was on tour with The Black Keys. Szymanski was eager to make music that didn't follow "The Hentchmen formula". He found a partner in the Cyril Lord's Morris. Like The Raconteurs SSM have not abandoned there roots. There are hints of The Hentchmen and the Cyril Lords, but that is where it ends. The two have taken advantage of this side project to expand and explore. Morris, in addition to his drumming, brings his experience with sound effects. This experience fills in the canvas. SSM opens with one minute of keyboards and sound effects before launching into Beck/ Blur-ish "Exit Strategy". SSM overall is heavily influenced by these mid 90's alternative powerhouses. "Aint Love" and "Sick" make ample use of sound effects but do not forsake the song. "Put Me In" turns out a very serviceable rhythm and would be a great dance song. Don't expect a remix though. "Candy Loving" and "Viking's Daughter" gets close to the Hentchmen's and Cyril Lord's sound. Most notably "Candy Loving" tones downs the odd effects on other tracks by using more organ sounds and a nice backing harmony. The sexual overtones are also a nice touch. "2012" is a droning psychedelic experiment that is surprisingly satisfying, as is, the Beatle flourishes on "Dinosaur*". SSM isn't for the average Hentchmen or Cyril Lords fan. The music can at times disjointed and the subject matter is definitely not cars, parties or booze. Still, if you stick around for the "Worst of Me" you will be rewarded with possibly the best sing along to come around in years. SSM just might put the Szymanski and Morris on the alternative map.
- Rinjo Njori / Another Sunny Day In Pop
Bravely mashing Simply Saucer with Blue Cheer one moment, Plastic Ono Iggy with Blondie the next, then dragging Holland/Dozier/Holland screaming towards Devo just for good measure, SSM create insightful sounds which, thankfully, are NOT for the musically faint or fickle, yet stand incongruously straight and solid despite their wickedly wide source-base. In less obtuse words then? If you've ever wondered what would or Should! have become of those not-so-young Rascals, or how Beck might act if he plugged all the way in for a change, then this disc, and this trio, are totally up your valley.
- TorpedoPop
From their absurd blacklight sci-fi album art to their acronymous band name (ELP, anyone?), (John) Szymanski, (Dave) Shettler and (Keith) Morris are a supergroup thoroughly conscious of their status as such. Everything about this self-titled debut is bigger and more exaggerated than the sum of SSM's parts, right down to epic nine-minute closing jam "The Seer." But what keeps this power trio from descending into bloated self-parody is the ability of each member to take the modi operandi of their more well-established "day jobs," and coax them into exciting new directions. Sure, the Farfisa-driven Nuggets raunch of Szymanski's Hentchmen is all over tracks like "Exit Strategy," "Ain't Love," and "Candy Loving"; but hotwired to Cyril Lords frontman Morris' heavy guitar licks and some double-team percussion courtesy of ex-Sights drummer Shettler and the band's secret weapon, a vintage drum machine, it's a whole new beast - one which threatens to breathe some much-needed new life into that rickety bandwagon we call "Detroit garage." (...) if Brendan Benson is right and the Raconteurs' record can be considered the Rust Belt's answer to Nevermind, then SSM's debut must be Bleach: raw, ragged, crackling with potential; maybe a little too murky for its own good on occasion, but by and large a harbinger of great things to come. As for its relevance to the transitional scene from which it hails, well, this is as solid evidence as any that Detroit's garage cognoscenti need not hang up their white belts yet. Strap on your space helmets, kids: this is Garage Rock 2.0.
- Zach Hoskins / Blogcritics
Like writers, who cannot avoid inserting their lives into their writing, SSM marinates in the rough but endearing Detroit sound that they've been surrounded by for over a decade each. But this is just a base a foundation that is even bypassed at times on SSM's self-titled debut . Take the introduction to the album's first track, "Exit Strategy", as an example, which is nothing but a collection of noises that serve as a soundcheck of creativity to come. From there, the record seamlessly shimmies from Gories-styled soulful garage ("No Looking Back") to a statically distorted glam hand-clapper ("Sick"), and shakes from the blissfully danceable "Put Me In" to the psychedelic sonic caboose, "The Seer". But it might be "Dinosaur" the only track to make the cut from their critically acclaimed (New York Times) demo, LP1, onto the official debut that is the killer which every album invariably needs. "Dinosaur" has elements of Beck, The Beatles, and Andre Breton the blips of the Atari game keyboard line, the tumbling breakdown, and the surreal guitar solo garnish the dynamics of the upfront bass and backdrop stun-drumming. Equally as sticky is the repeated opening line, "I've had much better than you," which is wonderfully simple and direct, much like SSM themselves. Yet, like the band, its power lies in the layers behind it.
- The Crutch
Blaring retro organ that brings to mind ? & the Mysterians on such cuts as "Exit Strategy" and "Candy Loving," the band takes a new wave-ish detour on "Put Me In," and if Suicide's two-man lineup was expanded to include a guitarist, it would probably sound close to "Ain't Love." With many of their garage rock compadres being more concerned with looking the part -- SSM deliver musically on their self-titled outing.
- Greg Prato / AMG / Billboard
White soul lives! Members of The Hentchmen and The Sights stumble through saturated sloppy guitar chords, drunken vocals, reverb drenched keyboards, and weird sound effects. You can't go wrong by sticking to the Blue Cheer, ? and the Mysterians, Lyres, and Blues Explosion playbook, heavy on the wah pedal and handclaps. The final track, "The Seer", at over six minutes, is the absolute peak. As it trails off, you can lay back covered in sweat, smoke a cigarette, sleep a bit and sneak out before anyone notices.
- Mark / 75 Or Less
This is perhaps the appropriate version of garage rock to compare to the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs herk'n'jerk, or The Epoxies zany new wave via weirdo punk. Healthy amount of fuzzed out keyboard smog populates mid-tempo grooves. More relaxed Devo, or early Brian Eno as "Nuggets style" garage action these guys could play with the White Stripes/Raconteurs or anyone name checked above and any kind of non-brain dead audience could have a great time. There are vocal lines that wouldn't be out of place on a Zombies or Flaming Lips record, sythn-boom that could wander out of a Residents disc, Tiki hut cha-cha moves by way of Neu and tons of cool hip swivel r&b moves absorbed and rolled out with referencing anything specific. And the Cars. And Trio, don't forget Trio. The cover looks like they stole it from Budgie, WTF ? Shit I dunno any straight up comparisons but lets go with people who can grip the fun side of Neu, The Flaming Lips, Enon, Eno, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and the Cars.
- Craig Regala / Lollipop
Fuck the Raconteurs, SSM is the true Detroit supergoup, pulling members from Dirty D heavy weights the Sights, the Hentchmen and the Cryil Lords. They play the typical garage rock that dominates the Motor City but I think they got bored halfway through making the album and started throwing in lots of psychedelica, funk and electronica. And that makes for fun rock and roll. Plus, the album cover is kick ass.
- ELarceny: Better Living Through Music
The men of SSM were already Detroit rock scene fixtures before becoming SSM their work with the Paybacks and Hentchmen (John Szymanski), the Sights (Dave Shettler) and the Cyril Lords (Marty Morris) had those in the know knowing them. But SSM 's members weren't content to get by on their impressive pedigrees alone. Instead, they went to work melding danceable, good-time grooves, emotionally intense lyrics and a penchant for experimentalism into a sound that continues the redefinition of garage rock's boundaries.
- 24/7 + 1
If Jack White is a more focused, less eccentric Jim Morrison, then namesakes Szymanski, Shettler and Morris should at least be as renowned as Medeski, Martin and Wood by 2012 - the year referenced in SSM's epic, "2012." Meanwhile, "Worst of Me" is perfect potpourri for this summer's dance caves. Throughout the album they make use of phone ringers, bong hits, and what could very well be a Theremin, yet, if anything, its Auerbach's turn at the axe on "Dinosaur," which grates of wankery, and the more straightforward attempts at pop songs that miss their mark. In a world without artistic pretensions, this is what Liars would have sounded like five years ago if they were from Detroit.
- Aaron Levy / Exclaim
Whoa, these guys have really got their own thing going here. Kind of like a punk rock Medeski, Martin, and Wood, SSM perform a kind of drum, guitar and Farfisa organ combo with vocals somewhat reminiscent of bands like Love or even a tougher T. Rex. The cover art looks like one of those weird Yes albums from the 1970's, the opening track sounds like a B-side from soundtrack to The Shining and song titles run the fantasy / sci-fi gamut from "Viking's Daughter" and "The Seer" to "2012". Yet another unique notch on the growing belt of awesomeness embodied by Alive Records.
- Justin Habersaat / Altercation #19
SSM are part of the whole Detroit rock scene that spawned WHITE STRIPES, The Von Bondies and BLANCHE. The main difference between these bands and SSM is that SSM are smashing boundaries by taking what was once a sacred cow amongst American muso's - COUNTRY AND WESTERN - and dipping it, whether it likes it or not, screaming into modern art-rock and blue grass rock. Sounding like an explosion at a White Stripes supported by The Black keys gig this is an album that drives and centres around the hallowed and mythical being called "Americana". Huge sounding rock, with balls as big as Nabraska, and a lot of soul. To find out that their previous EP was recorded by the Black Keys main man Dan, is no surprise at all, as the 'Keys are obvious influences, but never once do you question the huge brilliance and originality that they seemingly exude. Like a party hosted by the Death from Above 1979 guys, attended by The 'Stripes and the 'Keys, this is a band who will make headlines, and deliver regardless of trend and what's apparently hip at the time From start to finish, its juts pure utter and total greatness.
- Andi James Chamberlain / Subba-cultcha (UK)
You may remember Szmanski, Shettler and Morris (SSM, respectively) from such notable Detroit garage acts as the Hentchmen, Paybacks and the Sights, but this new project knocks these bands right back to the minor leagues. And this isn't some Jack White-endorsed motor-city revivalist group, either. SSM has its feet grounded in tradition, but its roots only serve as a reference point. Playing fuzzed-up glam on the recent single "Sick" to carnival oompah-pah ("Candy Loving"), culminating with the stomping space odyssey "2012" - and that's only in the first 20 minutes! The remainder of the record is equally as unpredictable: bouncing between straight-up rock to the more spacey, drugged-out moments ("You're Next", "Seer"). It's hard to find fault with such an ambitious and well-rounded record - let's just hope these gems fall into the right hands, lest it become an overlooked, lost classic.
- Adam Simpkins / The Nerve
Not so much an avant-rock outfit as much as a trippy garage combo with a sick penchant for fucking with ear-bursting levels of volume; Detroits trio (singer/keyboardist John Szymanski, drummer Dave Shettler and singer/guitarist Marty Morris) SSM makes enough noise to bring the city down. First, the garage side prevails; the groovy melodies, the 60s acid drenched keyboards, the permanent feedback adhered to the fuzzy string work and those warm psychedelic keys which seem to encapsulate as much mindless drug-taking in the span of a five-minute song as the hour and something that a Russ Meyer film lasted. The melodies too are of a post-hippy nature; bathed in a Pre-Reagan time where the white powder was not yet considered addictive and careless fun was a pastime you immersed yourself into without the ever thought of the possible consequences. Tracks like No Looking Back, Sick and Candy Loving seem to revolve in a parallel universe; where at some point during the pre-disco 70s history took a left turn and conservatism, without rhyme or reason, simply vanished.
- Hansel Merchor / CD Reviews
The album covers a multitude of genres - futuristic rock/garage rock/synth pop, you name it. Using organs for some songs with catchy space-riffs on others, plus bringing back some 60's garage rock in places - they seemed to have nailed the quality album trophy well. Plus lyrically the album is majorly touching in places. 13 tracks of lush space-rock-pop coming from Szymanksi, Shettler and Morris.
- Paul Meggs / Velvet Grooves
SSM, a supergroup of sorts, have succeeded in creating a modern psychedelic/garage rock hybrid. Three members from bands the Sights, Cyril Lords and the Paybacks got together to raise Detroit rock sound to a new level. (It's no surprise these guys are friends of the Datsuns). Relentless grooves, stomping rock percussion and unpredictable, gutsy turns make this self-titled debut, with its songs about space girls, a must-have for rabid rock fans.
- Celine / The Sentimentalist
Detroit's avant-rock outfit SSM is made up former members of The Hentchmen, The Sights and The Cyril Lords. Their trippy reinvention of garage rock is so infectious that you'll find you can't get enough of this album. I've been listening to it almost all day and it still hasn't got old yet. If I had to describe it in one sentence I guess I would say it's sort of like a mix of the Amboy Dukes, early Rolling Stones and the Gang Of Four. "Candy Loving", "Viking's Daughter" and "The Fourth" are my picks on this disc but the whole thing sounds pretty damn cool if you ask me.
- J.R. Oliver / Ear Candy
Motor City's SSM - singer/keyboardist John Szymanski (The Hentchmen), drummer Dave Shettler (The Sights) and singer/guitarist Marty Morris (The Cyril Lords) - makes everything from gritty, howling bar rockers to synthed-out electro-trash anthems, all the while disguising it as Detroit garage. However, as the wall of noise/sound check/intro gives way to the inebriated swagger of opener "Exit Strategy" and it's ripping analog keyboard climax, it's obvious that there are influences here that reach beyond Detroit. As far, in fact, as 60s Swedish garage rockers The Backdoor Men. There are hints of many things along the dizzying ride of this debut full length - from The Rolling Stones to the Frank Black-ish belting vocals of highlight track, "Put Me In" and all the way to space-rocked-out jams that The Flaming Lips could join in on. Aside from the energy, attitude, fuzzed out guitars, heavy drums and sleazy sex appeal in their sound, there are two main elements that come together to define the SSM sound. Shettler's use of both organic and programmed beats throughout gives the record a modern spin while Szymanski's vintage analog keyboards keep it old school and authentic sounding. So if it's not futuristic and it's not a throwback this must be the sound of now. Future vintage garage rock.
- Just Add Noise
The keyboards on this CD absolutely swoop and growl and roil and shake with mighty slabs of low end rumble that nicely compliment some pretty heavy guitar parts. People are saying that this is more garage-rock revival stuff but I beg to differ. This is pure sonic sludge that defiantly takes on some of rock's past influences but yet wraps it all up into today's rock and roll.
- The Rock An Roll Report
Lazy, crudely contagious 'SSM' is irrefutably bedecked with all the trademark garage punk attire that you'd come to expect of an ensemble made up of members from some of the Detroit scenes finest rockers, yet there's a subtle difference at large here. While most bands might happily peddle their vintage near cloned tributes to Pebbles finest until the cows don't so much come home but rather more start a spot of spontaneous breeding with the natural habitat, SSM's brand of customised garage has instead of being left to choke on exhaust and spray paint fumes been allowed out onto the open road to fill its engine with as much cross pollinated generic air as its turbo charged eight cylinders can take. Cannibalising Keith Richard's early 70's street cool riffs and giving them a much needed shot of adrenalin is only part of the equation at the heart of SSM as they run the gamut and spit out at unnerving frequency all the keynote reference points of rock 'n' roll's multi faceted heritage. The bone rattling boogie 'Sick' with its scuzzy Stones-esque skeletal thrill burns with shades of classic Ronson while 'Candy Loving' is the long lost cousin of the Standells 'Dirty Water' with the tear inducing rawness being brought about by the bands reliance on only guitar, drums and keys - the latter executed in the most part with a sure fire kooky delivery. 'Exit strategy' opens the set with a to die for mooching riff that owes more to old school rock steady / ska than garage while the ghost of Link Wray is in attendance throughout to varying degrees no more so is this the case than on 'Worst of Me' with its lurking fuzzy overlays, soft psyche washes and crooked detuned keys. Then there's the electro blues of 'Ain't love' while elsewhere 'Put me in' even dabbles with a spot of deliciously choked white funk before mutating into something not to dissimilar to early wired up Fall. Glam rock is dragged through the blender on the seismic 'No looking back' and comes out of the other end tie dyed and bespoked with a hint of crucial darkly toned psyche for good measure - a bit like a scrubbed up and tightened New York Dolls. All said and done nothing quite compares with '2012' - a horny as fuck hi-fi humping b-movie suited and booted shades wearing bastard love child of the Stones '2000 light years' and the Monkees '(I'm not your) Steppin' Stone' with Baby Woodrose overseeing the delivery - snakes seductively with such primal sensuality that it could, if bottled up, put Viagra out of business. Absolutely essential debut release so much so that you'll never want for those Pebbles compilations ever again.
- Mark Barton / Losing Today
What SSM sounds like: like Ian Sevonius if he didn't try so hard, the Jesus and Mary Chain w/out so much pretension, and a lot of early 60's garage band stuff that you've heard before, maybe, but not quite filtered through the psychedelic keyboards or the rubbery guitar. There's also this very gritty Detroit feel to it, possibly because they're from Detroit, but you get the drift (...) Best lyrics of the year so far are from their song "Worst of Me:" Sorry I never sent no flowers/when she overdosed/yeah/ sorry i never sent no candy/when she was comatose/yeah/and sorry I wasn't there for you/when you needed me most--they're just deliciously silly lyrics, made all the more ridiculous with a guitar solo smack in the middle of the song, ala Pink Floyd. Yes, my friends, that's the worst of anyone right there.
- Revenge
Rough and somewhat distorted guitars hit hard with a classic garage feel, while the drums keep up a steady beat. Tracks like "Candy Loving" and "Ain't Love" give this album a toe-tapping feeling of joyful energy, while songs like "Dinosaur" brings a psychedelic edge. No matter how it's described or sold, SSM's throwback to the '60s psychedelic sound should have no problem pleasing its listeners.
- Matt Edmund / Skratch
SSM self titled debut disc is a wild ride through the minds of musical mad scienctists fusing rock with psychedelic pop and any other music that comes in handy. SSM is awesome musical chaos played by three guys who have been in the game long enough not to care about sticking to some sort of formula and play what they want. Tracks like Dinosaur and Vikings Daughter are nothing short of fun with their catchy and straight forward lyrics. SSM is a solid band that is definitely worth a listen.
- Ectomag
SSM injects the whole Detroit neo-garage trend with a big dose of heaviness and psychedelia, creating something closer to the experimental, anything-goes spirit of '60s garage rock than their more watered-down, MTV-friendly contemporaries would ever dare imagine. At the same time, they aren't '60s rock purists, or yet another formulaic, Nuggets-inspired rip-off.
- Kat Stewart / Maximumink
There´s certainly a lot of influences in here from the likes of Iggy Pop & The Stooges to The White Stripes to MC5 to Alice Cooper and even some Stones thrown in amongst it all! If anything this disc is far from predictable and anyone in to Garage Influenced Rock will certainly get in to what SSM are about. There´s 13 numbers on here and each and everyone as mind blowing as the last. My advice to get the best out of this album is to put your feet up and either sup on a beer or light up a spliff!
- Steve DIY / Fullfrontalrecordings
These Detroit rockers--keyboardist John Szymanski from the Hentchmen, drummer Dave Shettler from the Sights, and guitarist Marty Morris from the Cyril Lords--look like a garage band and play shows with garage bands, and their new self-titled full-length is on Alive, a label that mostly puts out records by garage bands. So when you discover that they're messing around with space-epic analog synths and stoner-dumb lyrics about UFO girls in songs that jump the rails of the usual verse-chorus structure, you might feel kind of confused, or even angry. That's totally OK. Garage thrives on hybridization, but mixing it with prog--its complete antithesis in sound, scope, and fidelity--is straight-up kinky by anybody's standards. Fortunately, like Eno on the better parts of Here Come the Warm Jets, SSM manages to fuse the low- and highbrow into something better than the halfway point between. And as always, ten bonus points for putting a bong-rip sound on your record.
- Miles Raymer / Chicago Reader
We think SSM, a name comprised of the first initial of each band principal's last name, benefits from the same electrified roots that power acts like Detroit contemporaries The Von Bondies or late-lamented Bethlehem, PA garage-psych unit The Original Sins. Perhaps SSM's greatest strength is in the non-blues-derived flourishes it uses to augment its music. Album opener "Exit Strategy" rides a two-chord Fall riff, analog keys lace much of the proceedings with a touch of space rock and the band delivers foot-stomping power pop anthems with the curiously sequenced album highlight "The Fourth" and "Put Me In." Closer "The Seer" hits a rigid groove in its final minutes that lays the foundation for a guitar melt-down and takes the record out.
- Clicky Music
SSM's self-titled debut has many hallmarks of past and present Motor City garage rock, sounding at times like the love child of the MC5 and the White Stripes. Morris' unhinged, bordering-on-chaos guitar thunder is matched by Shettler's wall-of-sound drumming, with the ace in the hole coming from Szymanski's old-school, analog keyboards. It's as if ? & the Mysterians had walked in on a session with Iggy & the Stooges, a happy collision between pop and hard rock, melody and noise. Shettler's use of programmed percussion on such songs as "Ain't Love," "2012" and "Put Me In" is also refreshing, helping to steer the band away from cliche and toward the realm of the arty and unpredictable. Among the many high points are "Sick," which has the stomp and bluster of early Alice Cooper, and "Viking's Daughter," which starts with a relentless groove and then takes some unexpected twists and turns. "Dinosaur" is the only track included from SSM's limited demo "LP1," done last summer shortly after the band's inception. The other 12 songs were recorded this past February by Chris Koltay at his High Bias Recordings studio in Corktown. SSM's debut album is anything but cookie-cutter Detroit rock, its tangle of unexpected moments and blend of guts and brains making it truly memorable.
- Martin Bandyke / / Detroit Free Press
Go ahead, name a good band with a lead singer who also plays the keyboards. And if you say "Flock of Seagulls", than get the fuck out of here. It just doesn't happen in nature, rockin' bands with keyboard singers. Singing drummers, maybe- Exciter and the Mentors- but not the synth guy. Until now. SSM (Szymanski, Shettler, Morris, just like ELP!) is a far-out trio from Detroit led by the first S guy, John Szymanski, who plays a crazy, wobbly organ and warbles about weird shit while the guitar dude (Marty Morris) bashes out 60's fuzzpunk riffs and S2, drummer Dave Shettler, tries to keep the band on Earth. It's space rock with a beat, and it gets wilder as it rolls along. The first few tunes are sorta stripped down and jumpy, but as the album progresses, SSM starts sounding like early 70's BOC fronted by a mad calliope player. By closer "The Seer", it's just squiggly dialtones and acid-metal guitars, pure cosmic freakery. And that's fuckin' alright with me. Turns out that keyboards go way better with drugs.
- Sleazegrinder
Garage rock? Detroit sound? Dance Rock? Synth pop? Who cares? SSM's first full-length is a lot of fun, original and interesting. And the trio is made up of three weathered Detroit-based musicians. John Szymanski plays bass in the Paybacks and vocals/keys for The Henchmen. Dave Shettler has played drums with The Sights. And guitar player Marty Morris was a part of The Cyril Lords. Together they have created a sound that doesn't need to be defined, only listened to. There are passionate vocals, pots and pan drum beats hitting all over the place, raw guitar riffs and strange synth noises floating through the whole album. Pick this one up and get ready to dance and enjoy some original local jams that sound like they could be from another planet.
- Erik Adams / State News
"Candy Loving" and "Sick" bend new wave through a prism, and are can't-miss download hits. But the nearly seven-minute closer "Seer" is a slurping and spidery near-dub workout with more echo than a canyon, and "You're Next" alternates detached psychedelia with spiky lead guitar and an overdriven chorus. "You're next on my list of hearts I gotta break," it goes, telling those bird women what's what. And the rest of the conversation is lost in echo and sly organ, a sticky early-summer splutter of pop multiplicity that puts SSM on the cusp of space and maybe more.
- Johnny Loftus / Detroit Metro Times
SSM are the initials of the last names of the three principal players in the band (Szymanski, Shettler, Morris). But I personally think it'd be a more appropriate abbreviation of Sonic Shattering Madness, because these 13 apocalyptic psycho-beat dirges and dizzying Garage Rock anthems wildly veer all over the musical globe, incorporating a bit of Syd Barrett, Swell Maps, The Pixies, and Butthole Surfers along the way. Late at night when the rest of the world is fast asleep, I'm gonna hear the SSM noise in my head and let the demons dance accordingly. Boo-ga-da boo-ga-da oh yeh!
- Moser / Under The Volcano
Interview with the Italian magazine Extra
">Review on the Portuguese site Rock Around The Blog
Review on the Dutch site Planet Trash
Dutch review on Goddeau.com
Detroit; dog bollocks; connections to the Hentchmen, the Sights and the Cyril Lords; wickedly screwball with lashings of lo-fi fuzz to 60's Pebbles derived psyche - garage - crusted with elements of Link, Lou and the Standells as though bitten by the groove bug wearing shades and leather, quite possibly the sexiest thing we've heard all year so far - need we say more.
- Losing Today
This Detroit trio, singer/guitarist John Szymanski, drummer Dave Shettler and singer/guitarist Mary Morris, has the requisite overdriven amps and three-minute songs, but with a deep swirl of droning chaos that recalls the paisley underground works of Dream Syndicate and The Rain Parade. "Exit Strategy" opens with a space-age collage of sound, Joe Meek style, before finding its bass-heavy groove, launching into a wilder double-time passage and resolving back to the original groove. "Ain't Love" and the intergalactic love saga "2012" match Perry & Kingsley styled early-60s synth sounds with '70s drum machines and roaring electric guitars. Even stranger is "You're Next," mediating its blistering guitars with warm organ interludes that provide unsettling shelter from the psychedelic storm. This trio rocks hard, retaining the raw energy of '60s garage rock while seasoning their productions with exotica, primitive electronica, punk, blues and more.
- Eli Messinger / CD reviewers
SSM is a merely a trio, yet their wall of sound belies this fact, sonically punching you in the face from all sides without apology. It's a crazy mix of styles and sounds, taking classic garage rock into multiple musical directions, all the while overwhelming the listener with a sheer amount of unforgiving sound. The keyboard-and-guitar attack proves to be quite impressive, jumbling together an array of noise and discordant retro melodies which seem to work in spite of themselves. It's a piece of work that's out of time and space, not falling into anything easily labeled or categorized. When it comes down to it, it's just rock, but it it's rock that will knock your socks off.
- - Mish Mash
With cover art pleading for a vinyl release, or a mural, this 21st Century boy is thankful beyond his years that SSM came delivered on an 'easy to get started' 5" disc. This album... there is really something new and exciting - yet rooted in a thick nugget of nostalgia some 35 years past - going on here. "I'm sick / of making front page news", says this band of mind-slayers on "Sick". Well, Szymanski, Shettler & Morris, I'd say get used to it - 'cause it's not everyday you hear rock any music this exciting. Hell, "2012" sounds like the theme Bond - James Bond - has been waiting for since he started getting all Octopussy. All that and the jam is about women from the future who feed their lovers "mashed potatoes and iced tea". Deal! Drums, all six strings (that slaying solo on "no looking back" grips me), multiple categories of keys and vocals supreme - this album.. . I mean Good! Lord! Detroit! Rock! City! Mothership!
- Kaleb / SCTAS
These thirteen songs combine elements from techno, jazz, funk, progressive pop, and garage rock into a great big creamy stew. Szymanski, Shettler, and Morris play with confidence and enthusiasm...and their songs immediately stick. Fun, upbeat, and melodic...this album is sure to be a big hit among fans of the real underground.
- Babysue (5+ babyheads)
The SSM rock 'n' roll fable begins like so many: Two music-loving dudes putting back beers at a house party following a rock show in a desperate Midwestern town. In this instance, the dudes were John Szymanski of the Hentchmen and the Paybacks, and Marty "Mother" Morris of the Cyril Lords. And they were plotting a rock opera.
"We had talked about it for a while," says Morris with a lost-in-thought stare.
The rock opera went nowhere. But in the summer of 2005, when the Hentchmen were in the midst of downtime, Szymanski knew just who to call to help flesh out some songs he'd written. They didn't strut the chugging, chicks and cars ethos of the Hentchmen; they were strange and diverse sketches that mined broader, darker influences. In other words, this was Szymanski — and then Morris too — trying to reach beyond the rock 'n' roll landscape they'd long pored over.
Enter drummer Dave Shettler, whose recent CV includes stints with the Sights and R&B singer Nathaniel Mayer. But he's also manned rhythm for the Toledo-spawned experimental pop-meets-Joe Jackson band Koufax.
Szymanski and Morris gave him a tryout. The fit was right, and Shettler validated Szymanski and Morris' experimental path. Plus, he had electronics, music machines and other sound toys.
So the band settled in and started playing. The music brought out new wrinkles in each man.
Some were so basic, like effects pedals, which Morris had never used before. "This band has brought out my most psychedelic playing," he says.
Others changes were more subtle, such as the shift from the almost-ironic distance in Hentch and Cyril Lords songs to intimate expressions of pain, agitation and isolation. That Szymanski's voice sounds like it's about to fall apart only adds to the sense of desperation, as does Morris when he sings about being "sick as a shit-fed mule" or a "snot-nosed kid in a public pool" on the stomping and swinging "Sick."
"Exit Strategy," on the other hand, is just a ragged-nerve freakout. Behind the bash-'n'-beer-hall bonhomie of Hentch recordings, Szymanski's a hardcore Devo-tee who harbored a fascination for Gary Numan, and was a follower of such krautrock giants as Can. And "Ain't Love" is one of the catchiest grooves for a song about obsessive love: The main character hires detectives at the advice of his mother to "watch you watch your flowers grow."
"It really does seem like trying to express something that dark or dangerous or whatever," Szymanski says.
"But we still play a 12-bar blues," says Morris. "But we do something a little different with it."
When you've spent 14 years on the DIY circuit, as Szymanski has (and as Shettler and Morris have, for that matter), you're going to end up with a gang of creative enablers who've got your back.
"We've made a lot of friends and kind of called in favors from a lot of those friends," says Szymanski.
He'd just wrapped up a tour with Akron blues-rock duo the Black Keys and casually mentioned to Keys' guitarist Dan Auerbach that he wanted to make a record with him.
And, with 11 shows (including a party in Szymanski's basement) played over a month, the trio headed for the city that BF Goodrich built and Devo made famous. They quickly recorded 12 tunes. The result is LP1 — a demo of good 'n' rockin' strangeness.
"After we got done recording, we opened for the Black Keys at Beachland Tavern," recalls Morris, "and by the time we finished the second song of our sound check, it had already been decided that we were going to go on tour with them."
The purists who gravitated to the Hentch party vibe have found their tastes tested, though. One longtime Hentch fan gave the record an open ear — until he heard the drum machine kick in on "Ain't Love."
But that kind of exploration is a huge part of SSM's charm.
"I've never really written a dance song before, a real dance song," says Szymanski. "But the other day, Dave was playing 'White Horse,' and that's just one of the greatest keyboard lines."
The result of said old-school synthspiration? A new jam called "Juice Box" about trying to keep the party going by keeping the jukebox well fed.
But the overt dance song may be more exception than rule.
"These aren't good times," says Shettler flatly. "It doesn't make sense to make music that's about having fun when there's so much horrible stuff happening every day."
Something's clicking, though. SSM's demo has been reviewed favorably in The New York Times and The Village Voice. Auerbach's patronage helped bring SSM to the attention of L.A.'s Alive! Records, and last month SSM signed a deal for their debut album.
So the trio recently holed up at producer Chris Koltay's High Bias studio in Corktown to try to nail the magic of Akron one more time.
"It was tense, and sometimes not in a productive way," says Shettler.
But having heard the rough mixes, the band members are happy with the rerecordings of LP1's tunes (as well as four new cuts).
SSM (at the moment, the acronym stands for Send Some Money) will be traveling to Austin for South by Southwest, taking their last-stand mentality straight into the belly of the music industry beast. After that? With a band whose drummer claims he's already trying to invent his way out of a job, who knows?
"I want to just play a table full of machines — rhythm and noise machines," he says diagramming the table in the air.
"You know, like Simeon from Silver Apples," finishes Szymanski.
"Yeah, we're looking for a drummer," grins Shettler.
- Chris Handyside / Metro Times
SSM are the initials of the last names of the three principal players in the band (Szymanski, Shettler, Morris). But I personally think it'd be a more appropriate abbreviation of Sonic Shattering Madness, because these 13 apocalyptic psycho-beat dirges and dizzying Garage Rock anthems wildly veer all over the musical globe, incorporating a bit of Syd Barrett, Swell Maps, The Pixies, and Butthole Surfers along the way. Late at night when the rest of the world is fast asleep, I'm gonna hear the SSM noise in my head and let the demons dance accordingly. Boo-ga-da boo-ga-da oh yeh!
- Moser / Under The Volcano
Despite the Detroit band's pedigree, bluesy garage rock is more of a starting point for SSM than a final destination. The album kicks off with the appropriately savage "Exit Strategy" and similarly rockin' "No Looking Back." But by the sixth track (the slow, spacey jam "2012"), the album takes a slight turn into synth territory before closing with the funk-heavy blues of "The Seer."
- Jason Budjinski / New Times
Avant garde trio that is going to burst out of Detroit and into the national eye with this ear popper that is played with old instruments and rock that mattered passion, but they can deliver headache music with the best of the 90's Chicago underground. Certainly music to scare parents, this is hyper active, highly kinetic modern rock that takes no prisoners. Kids looking for the next unruly sound of the suburbs have a hot one on their hands here.
- Midwest Record Recap
Concert review : ... and man, did SSM certainly bring it that night. The band consists of refugees from other Motor City favorites: Marty Morris of the Cyril Lords, ex-Sights drummer Dave Shettler, and John Szymanski from my personal favorite Detroit live group, the Hentchmen. And strangely, much like Voltron, none of the sounds usually associated with this trio overpower the other - instead, they gladly become a synthesis of all their better-known projects, with a dash of unforeseen flavor in the form of the mighty drum machine. Not to mention they put on a juggernaut of a set. Add in the fact that SSM also perform with their own laser light show (if you can count a bunch of very disorienting strobe lights as a laser light show, anyway).
- Blogcritics
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