Todd "Purity Pledge" CD
[Southern]
So, I guess a Texan moved to London and eventually he started this band - which plays heavy, gritty, sludgy, noisy rock 'n' roll with a lot of distorted texture and vocals that range from lightly distorted yells to spoken passages or even a few absolutely sick, venomous growls/snarls. Some of the tracks have some female shouting as backup vocals to boot. The recording is fucking awesome, too. Perfect for this style. Warm, dense percussion; massively thick and powerful distorted bass; gritty guitars that have an acerbic bite when necessary but still possess enough raw low-end to feel well rounded; and subtly distant vocals that rest deep in against the instrumentation. Trust me, it sounds impeccable for this style. Writing-wise some of this stuff isn't my thing, as the band has a penchant for varying between tight and ferocious to breaking down to looser cavalcades of caustic textures and maniacal vocal displays. For instance, "Sedan" is among the longer tracks (though still not even six minutes), using lots of fierce feedback and noise textures alongside plenty of pounding rhythmic repetition; while the also longer title track has a lot of sparse moments interspersed with rhythmic surges and glitchy electronics or scraping guitar sounds over more repetitive percussive patterns and such. The awesomely titled "Little Dipper to Squirrel" (What can I say? I get a huge kick out of that one.) has a hardcore/punk sort of aesthetic going on, by way of quirky and belligerent noise rock; and, I swear, no joke... it seems like blasphemy, but "Butlers Portion" sounds to me like Eyehategod mixed with some kind of fucked up indie rock - copious on the drugs. Seriously. Shitloads of feedback, and yet somehow it's both memorable and lighthearted at the same time as being vile and sinister? How!? "Miss Longhornspeedway" has what sound like female vocals speaking in an Asian dialect against some of the more straightforward, and, dare I say, almost melodic musical backdrops herein; leading into the twisted and gnarled rock 'n' roll insanity of "Jenny" - Speak & Spell vocal accompaniments and all! The layout's really odd, with bright colors, strange visuals, and sloppily handwritten text. The back cover is a nicely colored live photo and I like the look of the handwriting, but the other stuff... it's weird. It's not that bad, but... it's a strange call, that's for sure. No lyrics are included either, so... the meanings behind oddball song titles like "Hog Blood River" and "Cracker Jack Asshole" remain a mystery. This is definitely an odd band. I'm not totally into it because, as mentioned, some of its noisier characteristics make for a rough listening session ("Mr. Harry" strikes a really effective balance between what I do and don't like about this material), but I have to give them credit for an interesting approach that truly comes across as rather genuinely unhinged and unstable, and the sound quality kicks ass for the more tangible chord progressions (which I'm in full support of). I think there are a lot of people out there that need to be exposed to this band too, because there's definitely an audience for these kinds of jams, and such jams are surely scarce to be found... (6/10)
Running time - 39:51, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Little Dipper to Squirrel, Butlers Portion, Mr. Harry, Miss Longhornspeedway]
Southern Records - http://www.southern.com

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