Will the Guns Come Out

iTunes Review

f fans of boulder-shredding garage rock haven’t yet discovered guitarist Hanni El Khatib, they will soon. It’s hard to ignore the pounding hook of “I Got a Thing” (an imaginative take on a 1970 Funkadelic song), which Nike used in a cool ad campaign featuring death-defying bike stunts, snowboarders, and skateboarders. (El Khatib is a California skateboarder himself.) The tune pulses with adrenaline and nervous expectation, El Khatib’s guitar cutting through air like a rabid samurai. He’s got fun tricks up his sleeve, too, like the slash’n’burn acoustic menace that is “Come Alive,” a stripped-down Black Keys–like fuzz looping through “F*** It, You Win,” and playful reworking of classic punk on “Build. Destroy. Rebuild.” His bluesy rasp gives away his soft core: sweet acoustic heartache bleeds from both “Wait Wait Wait” and his cover of Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” and he strips away the only other instrument (drums) from the stark, white-hot “Loved One,” just to get his point across. Will the Guns Come Out is El Khatib at his most primal, and it’s a thrill.