[06.03] Kemado is not marketing the Shout! compilation as a garage rock mix, and this is a wise choice. The music speaks for itself. It also swaggers, slurs, and shimmies for itself. Really, any garage-rock hype for this collection would smell of bandwagon jumping, and the central figures behind the comp—Pedro Mena and Steve Pestana—were waist-deep in this music well before Jack and Meg donned their modified Santa suits.

Mena and Pestana launched a weekly no-cover club night in Manhattan's East Village back in 1997, and called it Shout! This Sunday, if you happen to be on East 13th Street, duck into Bar 13, and these two Florida transplants will probably be there spinning after 10. Shout! also hosted bands from time to time, many of whom are represented here. A few of the acts here are well-known (Vue, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), and some are known but underrated (The Greenhornes from Cincinnati, Mover from San Francisco, the Warlocks from Los Angeles). One band, the Knoxville Girls, was a short-lived supergroup featuring members of the Cramps, Boss Hog, the Bad Seeds and Sonic Youth.

Good mixes require both consistency and diversity, and the 15-track arc drawn here has both. Compared with much of what is promoted as garage rock, these songs hang closer to soul and R&B than the blues. There is a strong '60s fetishism at play here, as evident by the club night's promo posters and the liner note shout-outs to Humble Pie, Canned Heat, and Blue Cheer. Many of the singers—all male—channel Jagger circa '64. (For those keeping score at home, Eric Shea from Mover gets closest to the target on "Courthouse Blues.") Vintage amps, of course, all tubes, of course, and plenty of tambourine-shaking boogie.

There are a few odd thumbs that jut out, such as the Boggs' bluegrass stomp and Calla's mopey shoegazing. But the rest of these bands are clearly kindred spirits who hearken back to the days of heavy vinyl, good-time Maximum R&B, and shag haircuts. The comp is smartly sequenced as Side 1 and Side 2—a move that I would love to see happen more often on modern releases. For fans of the White Stripes, the Strokes, and other retro-stylish media darlings, this compilation will provide many delights. For codgers who miss the soul-shake beer boogie of their youth, this disc will come as a welcome reminder that it's always 1971 somewhere. Here's hoping that Shout! will enjoy six more years of Sunday night rave-ups. —Kevin Seal