Blessing the Hogs "The Poisoning" CD
[Goodfellow]
I remember hearing a lot about this band awhile back, especially now that famed producer Billy Anderson has joined on as guitarist/vocalist, but this is the first time I've actually heard them. This release is a little bit misleading because it's a re-release of the band's first CD with some extra tracks, and Billy Anderson didn't actually play on the band's first CD to my knowledge. I didn't really know what to expect, but they bust out some powerful and relatively unique sludgy metal with a multifaceted screaming vocal attack and a good dose of diverse changeups. Most of the songs are very rhythmic and somewhat similar to one another, but there are some definite standouts. "Thinning the Herd" drops some sort of slow thrash riffs, "Solvent Farmer" jumps from blasting speeds to churning doom and stuttered rhythms, and "Sk" starts with some feedback and samples before kicking in full blast and eventually easing into some unexpectedly hardcore-ish breakdowns. I was really surprised to hear the band unload not one but two cover songs early on in the record, and back to back no less. "Prejudice" by Crucifix and "Crippled Children Suck" by the Meatmen. These are two of the bonus tracks that didn't appear on the CD when it was initially put out by the band. After the last song there's a track of silence and then you'll be treated to over three minutes of hilarious sampled insults from TV, movies, you name it: "You disgusting, wretched, sorry son of a motherfucker..." Oh yeah. Fucking classic stuff. The production is pretty solid. I wish there was some more low-end massiveness happening, but I can deal with this. The guitars are heavy, the bass is audible and adds some extra punch, the drums are nice and natural, and the vocals don't overpower anything. There's a little bit of separation in the mix that bothers me to a degree, but it does help the clarity considering how textured the guitar distortion is. I like the guitar tone more than anything else, but they've definitely got a good foundation working in their favor here. I love the layout on this one based on the consistency and colors/textures alone. The withered fonts are great, even though they're hard to read, the background textures are visually interesting, all of the band photos have been tinted colors that match the rest of the booklet, etc. It just looks awesome. There are some blurry images of old firearms in the background, but they don't even need to be there for this thing to look like a winner. Great stuff. I only wish they had included the lyrics, but it's not that big of a deal. This is definitely good stuff from a band worth looking out for. Their next full-length will be on Prosthetic Records and could very well surpass this one. (7/10)
Running time - 35:46, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Thinning the Herd, Solvent Farmer, Sk]
Goodfellow Records - http://www.goodfellowrecords.com

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