It goes without saying that this lot win band name of the month if not the year and it was no surprise to discover when reading into these degenerates that a) they are Australian and b) they don’t take themselves too seriously. Beer, bongs, thrash & grind are probably the four things that this twisted quintet worship and they have irreverently wrapped up the styles and resulting states of mind to bring us this album of just under half an hours-worth of audio insanity. Yes Pink Floyd lovers are probably groaning at the play on words and the album cover but Ministry already riddled the corpse of that particular album in a steamy heroin soaked piss anyway. However it comes as a slight surprise playing this album that amongst the humour the band can sorta play too.
There’s a nice heavy mix going on here with some good pounding drums taking us into the opening blast of ‘Welcome To The Fungal.’ Guitars limber up well and vocals are caustic and unleashed at high end rasp. It’s easy to bounce along to and get the head banging in time before it flies into a much faster blasting grind style which leads neatly to the beat up swagger of ‘Wish You Were Beer’ (groan). There’s some good samples here and the swearathon from that excellent sweary Western Deadwood is perfect for a track like ‘If You’re So Anal Why Do You Act Like A Cunt?’ It’s a good question and they ask it in a shredding high velocity way before the track slows and pounds a bit, jumping up and down on you that bit slower before finishing off with a huge stomping pace that is likely to have brains splattering all over the sidewalk.
Whether they run out of songs of their own or bad puns for the titles is unknown but the short album has a couple of covers included too and the interesting thing is although they are somewhat messy they are also instantly recognisable. We have both ‘Protest And Survive’ which emphasises the gnarly d-beats that the Discharge number helped make a staple diet used by many a band and Into the Crypt Of Rays has the Celtic Frost classic thrashed and vomited out in an uncouth manner that puts a whole new slant on it.
Sure this is not going to win any awards for originality or anything but the GBCR crew have put a smile on my face and kept me entertained; the only thing I have to wonder is why did they not cover a Bay City Rollers song too, perhaps they do that live, kilts n all? Actually hold that thought anyone resurrecting the likes of Shang-A-Lang deserve being locked up in Guantanamo Bay!
(6.5/10 Pete Woods)
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