Urge Overkill – Exit The Dragon LP – “Jaywalkin'” A deeper look into the grooves on the Porterhouse 2LP reissue of Exit Th Dragon by Urge Overkill. After the breakthrough that Urge Overkill’s 1993 album, Saturation, turned out to be , cheif songwriters Nash Kato and Ed Roesser found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to...
Butthole Surfers – Electriclarryland 2LP – “Thermador” A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Butthole Surfers’ Electriclarryland 2LP. Only in the Butthole Surfers’ world could the band’s greatest commercial success also mark the beginning of their collapse. By the time they began making their seventh album, the Surfers were finally beginning to see some of the increased interest that they had worked so hard to generate; they had already made an album with a member of Led Zeppelin producing...
Butthole Surfers – After The Astronaut LP – “Mexico” A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Butthole Surfers’ After The Astronaut LP. I confess that, when a vinyl copy of Butthole Surfers’ After The Astronaut arrived on my desk, I was thrilled – but I held off on reviewing it right away. I figured, “Why rush? I already reviewed the album once years ago ,...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Butthole Surfers’ self-titled 10” EP, released on Capitol Records in 1993. When Butthole Surfers signed with Capitol Records, it really must have seemed like anything was possible. By then, the years of living in a car, touring constantly and basically surviving on a steady diet of nothing were over; the band had unexpectedly broken through. Because they had attained a greater level of mainstream visibility, the band decided to live a little;...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Cartoon Violence LP by Herzog. Did it take me an unreasonably long time to review Herzog’s Cartoon Violence LP? Yes, yes it did – and the reason for that is simple: Cartoon Violence exists as a series of contrasting elements which are all trying to function and/or co-exist...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Buddha Jabba Momma LP by Chomp. As much as I like the artwork on the front cover (before I heard a note of the music on Buddha Jabba Momma, I was captivated by the cover’s similarity to some of the artwork on the interior of the Plastic Fang LP by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), I had to remind myself that interesting aesthetics do not make a good album. I also needed...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Hand On Heart LP by Cock Sparrer. While it would be easy for critics to claim that there are a finite number of ways to make an English-sounding or uniquely “Bostonian” punk record (see Dropkick Murphys’ catalogue for a Cliff’s Notes summary of that story so far), it should definitely go to Cock Sparrer’s credit that the band has managed to produce a solid and captivating listen in their Hand On...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Before You Get Broken LP by Guest Directors. It has often been said that a band’s debut album is intended to introduce that band to the world – but their sophomore release is more for the band itself. It might come from a desire to push boundaries or simply to establish that the band in question is capable of doing more than just reproducing the strengths that their debut album presented,...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Do You Really Wanna Know? LP by Plizzken. I confess that European punk (the stuff from mainland Europe – not from the British Isles) has often been a pretty hard sell, to me. I don’t mean that to come off as a slight or cultural bias, the music is just often hit or miss for me; even going back to albums like The State of Punk To Come and albums by...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into 45 Adapters’ Unstoppable LP. After having released a series of records of different sizes and speeds since the band formed in 2008 (to date, the band has released six EPs, splits and singles), it’s kind of funny when one realizes that Unstoppable is only the second full-length album which bears 45 Adapters’ name; they just always seem to be working on promoting something, so that their output includes just two full-length albums...