Substance fuelled Boogie Metal from Boston with this their first full length album being 12 years in the making. Not that they have been lying in a stupor – they have released several E.P.s and been playing tonnes of shows including Psycho Las Vegas and the Big Apple version of our beloved Desertfest.
I’ll get the if you like these you will like this bollocks out the way from the get go. From the first track three bands immediately spring to mind.
First up is the dirty swagger and smoky sludge ‘n’ roll of Weedeater. Mike from Leather Lung is not a carbon copy of Dixie but his tar lined larynx is pretty darn close and the shuffling rocking boogie that Leather Lung spew out tickles the parts that North Carolina stoner legends also hit. There are also similarities with another of my faves who, like Leather Lung come from the North Eastern states – Scissorfight. They have a dirty backwoods outlaw vibe that runs throughout the album with massive riffs sure but also some crazy hooks and choruses which stick in the brain like washing up liquid on a Molotov cocktail. The third band is maybe not so well know but it should be –London’s Bad Guys Graveside Grin’s opener “Spit In the Casket” sounds like it could come off the excellent Bad Guynaecology album – it’s so dirty but with a manic shit eating grin too.
Now the comparisons are out of the way let me give the props to the band at hand. As I said before this is proper bad ass, backwoods, outlaw rock n roll. Hooks that could catch Big Foot or a Megalodon and pounding drums that would turn both into oozing corpses (fuck for a teetotal vegan I am getting a little off brand!). Spit In the Casket has more venom than a basket full of cottonmouth snakes – he ain’t happy with the backstabber this is directed at and there is fucking gnarly riff attached to this poison pen letter.
It’s not all fightin’ talk though. Big Bad Bodega Cat is a Southern Blues style wily feline of a tune. The guitar line winds around your ears like a moggy round the legs dropping fleas and spraying its pheromones on your jeans. You won’t wanna get rid of this stench though.
I have mentioned outlaws a few times and there is a greaser biker anthem on here “Freewheelin’ Maniac” which is a chugging, cliche dripping track dressed in sweaty leathers and ragged bandanas. It is a little stop start so I reckon it is a Harley rather than a Triumph and is likely to be a skipper for this road warrior. (In my Renault Clio)
Luckily “Empty Bottle Boogie” is next up for a bit of tail feather shaking, a real bar room wiggler. All fun and laughter is quashed by hard and heavy “Guilty Pleasure” which starts with a doomy sludge riff before dropping into a Robb Flynn style almost rapped verse. It works brilliantly and gives a Nu Metal style of vocal delivery a dirty and raspy make under.
Talking of vocals there are some well used nasal cleans peppered throughout the album, like a Yankee Ozzy. They work well against the deep dirty gruffness of the lead vox and give an early proto metal feel to the tracks they appear on. “La La Land” has a Western vibe to it and some great funky drumming that got my toes a tapping. The instrumental interlude that preceded it “Macrodose” appears to have injected some mescaline into the booze Leather Lung are supping as things get a lot more psychedelic and trippy for here on out. It’s no surprise that there is a smoking anthem on here – just surprising it took so long to get her . “Twisting Flowers” mixes in the cleans with the rasps for a good ol’ fashioned stoner, sludge doom mash up with a big ole groovy riff to get your addled brain bouncing. Talking of brains mine is occupied by squatters in the shape of the riffs and lyrics from “Headstone”. It has one of those infectious hooks built round a spiralling chord progression and a killer middle eight but sneaks on you from a chilled groovy intro that takes your hand and takes you into the cemetery with a charred blunt, a bottle of hooch and some formaldehyde to huff. “You got to choose your words more wisely” Man I cannot get that phrase out of my head. Good words to live by too.
“Cornered Animal” is very Bad Guys. The vocal line follows the riff and is a sneering snarky groover but it leaves light footprints on my ears and psyche. However the album closer “Raise me Rowdy” has got lead boots on, big Orange Goblin grooves here and big flangey guitars abound. A gutsy, groovy end to a great collection of greasy tunes. A couple that could do with a bit of summat added but there is enough here to make my chest hair curly.
(8/10 Matt Mason)
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