Pop Music Review : Fetchin Bones: Concepts in Search of a Format

It’s easy to enjoy the personality of North Carolina’s Fetchin Bones. Sloppy, garish and wildly energetic, the quintet gleefully embraces the funky absurdities of American trash culture. At the Roxy on Wednesday, Bones’ vocalist Hope Nicholls resembled the mutant Day-Glo offspring of a body-painted “Laugh-In” extra.

Re-enacting the scenario of an abandoned unwed mother in “Mr. Bad” (from their strong new “Monster” album) or detailing the delirium brought on by “Wine,” Nicholls’ Southern fried grittiness and cement-mixer yowl combined the hell-bent abandon of Janis Joplin with the ironic street poet sneer of Exene Cervenka.

Yet Bones’ sloppy musical collage (an R&B; change here, a punkish blast there, a country two-step rained on by heavy metal thunder) rarely coalesces into hooks you can take home. A lot of these ditties about chicken trucks and astronauts are concepts in search of format.

Bones wants to build that bridge to wider appeal without compromising its trailer-court free-for-all approach, but bids for commercial acceptance, like the mid-tempo ballad “Deep Blue,” pale against the ferocious metaphors about capitalism in “Say the Word.” This is a band caught at a crossroads, trying to find its way home.

The opening act, Kill for Thrills, could take a clue from Bones about originality. Yet another bunch of Hollywood Harley ‘n’ hair rockers singing about motorcycle cowboys, the quartet (which includes Mike Nesmith’s son Jason) recycles every standard street-rock cliche in a manner so pedestrian that its rebellious stance seemed about as threatening as jaywalking.