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Resurrected right outta the fetid, stinking
trenches of the early/mid 80's Cleveland hardcore jungle and also recently
recovered from amongst the trash in the bowels of ma dirty filthy upstairs
basement room almost a year after it was lost in a hurried flat move,
hurling stuff in the back of a van dodging dodgy landlord, this could
herald a spin off from gigs from hell in being recordings
from hell. In the nicely self-deprecating sleevenotes by leader
Tom Miller lie tales of drummers learning songs the day, sorry night,
before recording by playing air drums to rehearsal tapes, before promptly
quitting, the age old one of clueless engineers in squalid suburban
studios not getting the drift at all and the other eternal one of the
endless revolving door of band members...The songs, mostly unreleased -
and in the main with good reason, tho I do dig on the whole idea of
putting out the entire recorded trawls and travails of some obscure band -
are a dizzy rush of manic popcorepunk - at times so fast it sounds like
Pinky and Perky backing Pete Shelley in a surrealist
Buzzcocks. Why Do You Hang Out? cuts a particularly fine
dash, a rampant frazzled vitriolic mess of a tune in there bursting out at
the seams. Elsewhere, there's snatches of DK / Bad Religion
type stuff and even slight hints of The Replacements. See, a song
like Fuck You Doug meeting the rather splendido Out Of
Breath is reminiscent of Westerberg's spinning from one
extreme to the other from off the cuff slamdunk thrash to teen angst
yearning. Unfortunately, between a few minor gems there's a lot of
pointless gurning, so unless you're a total obsessive collector anorak of
obscure 80's hardcore t(h)rash (and Miller kinda suspects that to
be the case of any of you buying this) then you are reliably informed that
you should borrow this from your unsuspecting chum who still thinks it was
a great idea to reissue Pagans stuff complete with shitty live
stuff on, and knock yerself together a cool little EP or even a jaunty
mini album. That'll be all. |