Were The Brian Jonestown Massacre the kind of band to take risks? With a terrible name like that, I’d assume so. They began their career as promising shoegaze tag-alongs. When it was evident shoegaze had no immediate future, they coincidentally reinvented themselves with the sound of ’60s British garage rock in Take it From the Man! It’s like it’s new. But it’s not, is it?

Doing a revival of an old sound is a risk, but a risk was not likely what the band were looking for. It’s a risk because the old stuff never went anywhere. In fact, the once oversaturated scene is now stronger than ever because its reputation persists by cherry-picked examples of scrumptious raucous singles that belie the fact that almost none of those bands succeeded at making a truly great album. The Nuggets compilations weren’t a courtesy; they were a necessity and the only necessity needed of that movement. The BJM had next to no chance of competing against that monumental canon, and predictably had nothing to add to it out of a whopping 70 minutes of lukewarm material.

Originality aside, the tunes on this album just aren’t very good in addition to being made out of a completely worn palette, and Newcombe’s tired vocals and the indistinguishable huge ensemble of guitarists all seem to realize that exhaustion when the result is a nearly blank canvas re-molding of a model that no one needed. The most interesting thing about the album is the more contemporary voice it takes in the lyrics (they even have a song called “Fucker”!), but it comes to naught when the music itself isn’t the voice of any generation.

Where the garage rock spirit was banging your away around until you broke into new territory by force, the Brian Jonestown Massacre stands in place while the forthcoming garage rock revival movement would blaze a new and true trail a short while later due to actually understanding its philosophy and appeal. The ’60s produced seemingly no end of timeless songs, and Take It From the Man! is nothing but its relics.