Love and Curses

Memphis garage-rock fixture Greg Cartwright continues to unearth intriguing corners of 1950s and 60s rock and pop.

Greg Cartwright’s soulful garage-rock outfit Reigning Sound is responsible for one of the decade’s best albums—2002’s Time Bomb High School—but has spent much of the rest of the ’00s off-road. The 2004 LP Too Much Guitar is terrific in its own way, but replaces Time Bomb’s warm, winning vibe with atypical…

As good as Reigning Sound's 2004 album Too Much Guitar was, the title was both an accurate self-review and a preview of what was inside; the deep soul influences that made the group's first two albums so memorable were pushed to the side, and while the album rocked hard and strong, it seemed as if bandleader and songwriter Greg Cartwright was ignoring an integral part of his musical personality in favor of making his music better understood to the nuevo-garage crowd.