Nothing in rock truly shocks anymore; been there, seen it all over the years. That doesn’t make it any of the less cringeworthy at times though and I must admit when the digital promo for this hit my inbox, I just took one look at the band-name shook my head and pressed delete. Since then though an actual disc arrived and naturally I was compelled to give it a spin. It can’t be that politically incorrect after all as it is on a label co-run by ‘piss and shit terrorist’ Mike Patton. These LA provocateurs have been around for a while and comprise of members of such bands as Dead Cross, Retox, Planet B and Qui and once you get past the moniker and discover that surprise, surprise they have no Facebook page proffering further info it is time to get down to the music itself.
What we get here are 13 tracks of blistering crossover-hardcore in essence with an in your face demeanour that rocks along at a pretty blistering pace. From the drum rolling intro of opener ‘Ass To Grind’ this one doesn’t let go and the snarly, snotty vocals of Matt Cronk give it a real ‘fuck you, we don’t give a flying one what you think’ yob laden immediacy. You could do parallels to similar namely miscreants such as Blood Duster at times here and there is also an Alt Tentacles vibe ala Jello vocally that sometimes comes across. ‘Dying To Hit’ has slewed vocals and lurching rhythms that remind of any number of bands that Paul Catton could be involved in (Barrabus, Stuntcock, Thicko). At times this almost borders on noise rock pretentions and is not afraid to go a bit mental but for me the best parts are when the group do a 30 sec burst of speed and suddenly fly into D.R.I., S.O.D., M.D.C. territory such as on ‘Cholos On Acid’ although companion piece ‘Cholos On PCP,’ is distinctly odd. I wish I could make out the lyrics a bit better, they are printed in tiny lettering on the CD, perhaps a song like ‘Seagull’ is about a stolen ice-cream snatched from its cone leaving the singer having a temper tantrum?
‘Goin Out West’ is a sleazy rocker that has a bit of familiarity about it, no doubt due to it being a Tom Waites cover and comes across as a rumble between The Dwarves and The Beastie Boys fighting for the right to party. I’m not entirely sure if songs like ‘He’s A Lady’ and ‘You Should See My Dad’s’ are entirely PC but that’s where we come back to the name and whether having a snowflake moment is what music like this is all about. This is exactly why I decided to give this a fair crack of the whip. Essentially it is fun as much as it is hard as nails especially when songs like ‘Supervised Visit’s’ which obviously has a serious message go full on mental and make you want to go back to a time when you were younger and happy to just join the throng and launch yourself off a stage like a lemming (a practice that has all but disappeared from most corporate venues these days). From being a total slacker ‘Fail At Failure’ to that old staple of signing up ‘Fuck You For Your Service’ this bunch of dicks certainly deliver and for that and lack of safe spaces here, we should really be grateful.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply