I SAW GENGHIS Khan about a month ago. On my way home from the show, I thought to myself, "I should write the review as soon as I get in, so I don't forget anything, and then when they ask me for it, it will be done, and I will have written it well, with the memories fresh in my mind." Then I went home and did not write the piece.

I was gonna write it at work the next day, but I played solitaire on my computer instead. I put in a good five hours of solitaire. My record is nine straight wins in a row. The rest of the workday was spent eating, reading ESPN.com, writing the most hilarious e-mails that ever fucking existed, and listening to "Squank," by ZZ Top, over and over.

The next day was much the same except I listened to Soundgarden a lot instead. Say what you want – I hated Soundgarden when they were popular myself, but now, years upon years later, I hear their music very differently. Soundgarden were fucking heavy. "Burden in My Hand" and "Fell on Black Days" are awesome songs. Chris Cornell sang like he had braided hair on his chest. And as for the whole grunge thing, which was about putting your feelings about heroin out there with loud guitars underneath – well, Soundgarden weren't as offensive about their angst as others were. The band's songs still sound heavy, and Cornell's pleas for understanding sound as genuine as the dead guy from Alice in Chains sounds whenever you hear the one where he's all, "What's my drug of choice? Well, what have you got?" It seems to me that grunge is more interesting now that it is universally hated than it was when everyone was singing along to "All Apologies."

Anyway, the point during the grunge years was to rock and be loud. That seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle in the past few years. Being loud is easy. It's the ability to rock that's not so easy. For the record, I hate the sound of that – "the ability to rock" or any time the word "rock" is used as a verb. It sounds like I have my head up my ass. But I don't know how else to put it.

This relates to the Genghis Khan show at the Golden Bull: Genghis Khan, a three-piece heavy boogie band from Oakland with a singing drummer, is one of pretty much zero bands – if you ask me – successfully attempting to unleash the ferocity of rock music. Which I think is important. Sometimes they sing about their feelings, which is unlike most hard rock and is what Soundgarden used to do.

With each song built on a darting and jabbing riff that goes about half speed until the drummer makes everybody go wicked fast for a couple of minutes, the band actually sound like the '70s pre-stoner metal, Sabbath-worshipping band Pentagram. Pentagram's totally awesome early stuff was rereleased a couple of years ago on Relapse, on an album called First Daze Here: the Vintage Collection, which you should go buy after buying Genghis Khan's 45 at their Myspace page (www.myspace.com/genghiskhanrock). This single hopefully has the band's best song, "God Damn," on which they play a heavy boogie that sounds dirty and genuine and not like they just heard Sir Lord Baltimore last week. The drummer-vocalist yells, "God damn. God damn. It happened again" in a sincere and funny way. Like it is honestly about being bummed, but humorous because you can identify with it. This is like the grunge mission statement, minus the funniness, though Genghis Khan do not play grunge. They play the same music people in the early '70s were making before hard rock became shiny. Boogying, psychedelic, and kinda stoned.

The Golden Bull show was like a tantrum. They came onstage, set up, and seemed to be really psyched at first and then increasingly less so as they bashed through four or five songs, all with those bounding riffs and spastic drum solos. Then all of a sudden, the drummer just said, "OK. That's it." Like he was pissed about something. And they stopped.

Genghis Khan are a relatively new band – they've been playing shows here and there and don't really have much of a following yet. But they have a clear idea of what they are doing, and that is playing music that is loud and heavy, with lots of guitar solos, drum freak-outs, and yelling. They are nowhere near being "cool," so there is still something charming about them. Check them out before they get ruined by people going to their shows and writing about them. (Mike McGuirk)