The Dismemberment Plan, the Dillinger Escape Plan, the Dillinger Four and now ... the D4. If underground acts don't start getting more creative with their monikers, hipsters might get too confused to bother name-checking them. This New Zealand quartet (whose members go by such names as Beaver and Jimmy Christmas) is yet another band that delivers the sort of unpolished, booze-fueled sound that brought "rock" back from wherever it was. But D4's ancestors are arena rockers, not independent icons. Basically, 6Twenty sounds like '70s AC/DC played at a punkier, drunkier pace. D4's songs about drinking and puking work because it's easy to imagine the group's members passing out immediately after writing them. And, as evidenced by songs such as "Rocknroll Motherfucker," these guys are smart enough not to act smarter than they really are. Sure, they're not as good as AC/DC, but they're better than anybody else who's currently trying to rip them off. Somewhere, Bon Scott is saluting.
