While dirtbags of all stripes are holding up liquor stores and tricking out
their mamas to afford the brace of CDs and concert tickets for the barrage
of
never-say-never reunions from such classic punk and garage outfits as The
Stooges, New York Dolls, A-Bones and others, two legendary road soldiers
have
quietly reformed and strapped on their guns for another go-round. The
Hangmen
were supposed to be the Next Big Thing to come out of L.A. after knocking
the
Strip on its ass with their mix of back alley attack riffs and cowpunk
swagger.
But as Sleaze and friends have documented in the never-ending saga of the
Flash
Metal Suicide, the best-laid plans for Next Best Things never quite work out
the
way they should. Capitol dropped them on their collective heads after their
self-titled debut (produced by the colossal Vic Maile—the Who,
Motorhead,
Lords
of the New Church, Vibrators, Girlschool, etc.) won over neither the tail
end of
the hair metal scene or the burgeoning grunge-flannel brigade. Two labels
and
ten years later, frontman Bryan Small pulled himself out of the spotlight to
kick a drug habit, regroup with a brand new posse of Hangmen, and has
released a
handful of discs on Acetate, including the stellar live disc, We’ve Got
Blood on the Toes of Our Boots. Small and Co. have all
engines set to blaze on Loteria, the band’s
latest
studio disc for Acetate. There’s not a wasted note or ounce of studio fat
here—the disc expresses its intentions right off the bat with “Blood Red”
(the
color Small intends to paint Hollywood and the world in general, shortly
after
“never taking back a thing [he] said”) and doesn’t stop cutting heads until
the
final groove. Stomp-and-snort hellbenders like “Hollywood Forever,” “Wild
Beast”
and a right-on-the-money rip through the Stones’ “Citadel” are what’s gonna
get
the cow-skull-and-leather-pants crowd in a lather, but the disc’s quieter
moments, like The Gun Club-styled “Can’t Stop That Train” and “Yes I Do,”
with
its Pixies-styled surf-guitar-from-space lick, also make a home in your head
long after the disc has spun to a halt. Either way, it’s a sleek
black-and-blue
monster of a disc, and thoroughly worth your long green.
______________________________________________________
Nine Pound Hammer
came out swinging from its hometown of Evansville, Indiana
with gearhead metal in one meaty paw and Southern boogie in the other, and
proceeded to drive those spikes deep into the crusty heads of garage freaks
across the South and Midwest. After about eight million name and lineup
changes,
guitarist Blaine Cartwright grabbed his mighty-mite of a wife, Ruyter Suys,
and
formed Hell’s Half Acre, which, as every good sleaze beast knows, further
mutated into Nashville Pussy. Now, seven years after the last NPH record,
Cartwright and singer Scott Luallen have returned to the terror farm with
the
umpteeth version of the Hammer, this time with Earl Crim on bass and
Brian
Pulito on drums. Kentucky Breakdown is basically like old times for
Cartwright and Luallen—it’s straight-up Hillbilly Thunder Rock, with Luallen
and
Cartwright’s iron-hided yokel vocals and the latter’s almighty guitar
kicking up
a major electrical shitstorm.
Plenty of fat dudes with pawnshop guitars and Mason-Dixon line accents can
sling
high-octane country punk that sounds like Nine Pound Hammer, but the band’s
secret weapon has always been its lyrics, which with their focus on being
lazy,
stupid, losing your woman to the dumb bastard next door and just plain
fucking
up your life across the board in the pursuit of double-malted happiness,
have
the wry humor and shit-luck shaggy-doggedness of great country songs.
Combine
that with all-needles-in-the-red production by Dave Barrick
(Hookers/NashvillePussy), a cover of Dancing
OutlawJesco White fave “If You Want To
Get To
Heaven” (“You’ve gotta raise a little hell”) by the Ozark Mountain
Daredevils
and an audio clip from The Wild Bunch, and whaddya got? A house afire, baby,
so just step out of the way and watch those flames get their groove on.
________________________________________________________
While dirtbags of all stripes are holding up liquor stores and tricking out
their mamas to afford the brace of CDs and concert tickets for the barrage
of
never-say-never reunions from such classic punk and garage outfits as The
Stooges, New York Dolls, A-Bones and others, two legendary road soldiers
have
quietly reformed and strapped on their guns for another go-round. The
Hangmen
were supposed to be the Next Big Thing to come out of L.A. after knocking
the
Strip on its ass with their mix of back alley attack riffs and cowpunk
swagger.
But as Sleaze and friends have documented in the never-ending saga of the
Flash
Metal Suicide, the best-laid plans for Next Best Things never quite work out
the
way they should. Capitol dropped them on their collective heads after their
self-titled debut (produced by the colossal Vic Maile—the Who,
Motorhead,
Lords
of the New Church, Vibrators, Girlschool, etc.) won over neither the tail
end of
the hair metal scene or the burgeoning grunge-flannel brigade. Two labels
and
ten years later, frontman Bryan Small pulled himself out of the spotlight to
kick a drug habit, regroup with a brand new posse of Hangmen, and has
released a
handful of discs on Acetate, including the stellar live disc, We’ve Got
Blood on the Toes of Our Boots. Small and Co. have all
engines set to blaze on Loteria, the band’s
latest
studio disc for Acetate. There’s not a wasted note or ounce of studio fat
here—the disc expresses its intentions right off the bat with “Blood Red”
(the
color Small intends to paint Hollywood and the world in general, shortly
after
“never taking back a thing [he] said”) and doesn’t stop cutting heads until
the
final groove. Stomp-and-snort hellbenders like “Hollywood Forever,” “Wild
Beast”
and a right-on-the-money rip through the Stones’ “Citadel” are what’s gonna
get
the cow-skull-and-leather-pants crowd in a lather, but the disc’s quieter
moments, like The Gun Club-styled “Can’t Stop That Train” and “Yes I Do,”
with
its Pixies-styled surf-guitar-from-space lick, also make a home in your head
long after the disc has spun to a halt. Either way, it’s a sleek
black-and-blue
monster of a disc, and thoroughly worth your long green.
Nine Pound Hammer
came out swinging from its hometown of Evansville, Indiana
with gearhead metal in one meaty paw and Southern boogie in the other, and
proceeded to drive those spikes deep into the crusty heads of garage freaks
across the South and Midwest. After about eight million name and lineup
changes,