Back in 1996, Toronto trio Danko Jones, named for the band's frontman, came together and began to tour relentlessly. Though they quickly became a legendary live act, it took six years before the group put out a proper full-length album. In the interim, garage-rock took over the radio, and the revival was in full swing by 2001, when The Strokes released Is This It and The White Stripes released White Blood Cells. Despite what the title of this album would have you believe, it's nearly impossible to view those records and this collection of demos and live cuts in the same light. With its gritty recording quality, Garage Rock! has a sweaty immediacy that nods more readily toward the 1960s and 1970s than the early 2000s. It's a document of a band running on bravado and fuelled by muscular guitars, though there's more to this music than that. On the one hand, it's populated with girls in one-piece snakeskin suits (an early take on "Bounce"); on the other, there's a healthy dose of authentic heartbreak (the slow-burning closer, "Move On"). Sure, Garage Rock is uneven and half-formed, but it gets by on sheer swagger and is a hell of a lot of fun.