Saying that horrorbilly headcases The Matadors have had a rough run over the last couple of years isn’t saying the half of it. After label signings and subsequent departures, personnel instability, the band’s ongoing range war with an entire city (Hamilton, Ontario) and a caustic rumor mill that has often greatly overstated the details of the band’s untimely demise, it would be perfectly reasonable for anyone – any band – to throw in the towel and call it a day but singer Joel “Hooch” Parkins and drummer Jason Westman have done something far more productive with the adversity: with a mountain of shit in front of them, it only made sense to sew some new, evil seeds. Sweet Revenge is the unholy crop borne of the band’s troubles made all the sweeter when it becomes apparent that the trickledown effect from the shit storm didn’t make it to the music.
The record opens with the uncharacteristically soulful and acoustic intro to “That’s How She Died” and, for the first forty seconds, it seems like the adversity may indeed have overcome the band as Joel strums tentatively and laments the cuckolding, cock-sucking bitch that left him sitting alone at the bar.
Just then Hooch turns the demons loose, unleashes Hell and kicks the casket closed on the sentimentality explaining “That’s How She Died.”
As it turns out, all of the hassles and hard knocks that The Matadors have endured over the last couple of years was just what the band needed to toughen up as Sweet Revenge illustrates. While the bass seat remained open as the tape rolled on Sweet Revenge (duties for the low end were performed by Julien Morrisette, Jeff “Stan” Fountain, Jeff Sheppard and Hooch himself depending on the track), the guitarist and drummer compensated by opening up their arrangements to include more interesting song dynamics, instrumentation and vocal styling. Thoroughly pissed off and with something to prove now, Hooch and Eastman blaze through songs including “Up All Night,” “Faith In Booze,” “Drunk and Drivin’” and “The Devil Taught Me How” with more fire than previous, more produced efforts like Horrorbilly 9000 and The Devil’s Music cooked with and makes a believer out of anybody that might have foolishly thought that sordid, hellfire bathed rebirths were an urban myth.
For what seems like the first time ever, The Matadors do figure out that the throttle turns both ways on Sweet Revenge (“That Kind Of Love” slows things down for a bit of sardonic shit-talking) and, particularly in the late-playing of the album, the band gets methodical in its delivery in design – but not at the expense of tempo. A well-placed and rockabillied cover of The Legendary Klopeks’ “Bush Party Handjob” will surprise the hell clean out of anyone listening when a wall of harmonized vocals smashes them in the mouth during the bridge before ex-Creepshow singer Jen “Hellcat” Blackwood pipes up to break a few hearts in “If You’re Gonna Bitch (I’m Gonna Drink)” and Hooch finally lets the engines rest on the ironically inflammatory “I Lied.” For the first time in The Matadors’ songbook, while the demons are still present they aren’t the central theme to the songs here and, while some would wonder how well they’d adjust to abandoning an image so central their songwriting, these songs actually work better because of the adjustment; it’s less hokey glam and more punkabilly and hence more rewarding.
After all the shit that The Matadors have gone through, Sweet Revenge is a true surprise and lives up to its name because it takes the band's detractors to task by just playing tighter and better than they've ever done before. This time around the band has done better than overcome; they’ve produced a landmark record by which all future releases will be judged.
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