Monsters promise “Noise rockin' terror trash garage mayhem 60's punk dance music!” - and they fucking-well deliver it too. Based around a lineup of guitar, bass and the highly inventive “clonedrum” (two standing drummers sharing the one kit), The Monsters have been going for years now, touring to Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Austria, England, Denmark, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, America and Japan, but have never had a release in Australia. A highly worthy CD compiled for the Jap market, Hide And Seek is a veritable Monsters Best Of, serving as a fine introduction to the loose, dirty garage sounds they excrete. To the obviously well-educated people at the Off The Hip label, all I can say is, it's like Ollie said many times to Stan, “Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.”
MORTI VIVENTI
AKA THE LIVING DEAD EP (TIMBERYARD/SHOCK)
Melbourne group Morti Viventi sound like a gothic Hot Snakes; or maybe The Bronx if they were more sensitive types; or a straighter shooting The Icarus Line; or Edgar Allan Poe if he knew how to rock out with his cock out. Employing sheets of grating feedback to serve a sultry, sulky, pulverising brand of screaming rock, their aggressive, uncommercial hooks burrow into you like a hungry scabies mite. My soul is now completely possessed. Vocalist Jordan Bloomer yells ad screams pure songs of the dead about cold fingers scraping your insides and demons with blood dripping from their fingertips with titles “Roman Polanksi
Discotheque” and “Curse These Black Hearts”. So how do these morbid fucks celebrate such an amazing debut? By breaking up, that's how. Death is so hot right now.
MUDHONEY
UNDER A BILLION SUNS (SUB POP/STOMP)
Went and saw Mudhoney when they toured here last year. Right in the middle of a set populated with classics from their glory days, Mark Arm (guitar/vocals) stepped up to the mic and announced that the band were going to play a new song, one they hadn't recorded yet. But rather than all rushing towards the bar en masse, the audience went wild for it. That incident showed the amount of respect Mudhoney have from their fans, which is a big part of the reason they've been able to keep it going when most of their Seattle Sound peers (Melvins aside) have faded away completely. The song was “I Saw The Light”, from this, their seventh studio album in a career spanning almost twenty years. They've slowed down as they've grown older, nudging their Bigmuffed sound into some new areas on each subsequent release, but it still always sounds like Mudhoney. Here they tinker around with a horn section ala Funhouse, and throw a few political-jibes into the lyrics of songs like the rerecorded version of “Hard On For War”, which appeared on Buddyhead's superb 2003 comp Gimme Skelter. After a few listens I'm right into it, but I felt the same way about Now We've Become Translucent (2002), and I never listen to that anymore.
Powder Monkeys
The Monsters
NEON BLONDE
CHANDELIERS IN THE SAVANNAH (ROGUE/INERTIA)
Electro thrash is a decent description of Neon Blonde, the lovechild of Blood Brothers' scream queen Johnny Whitney and drummer Mark Gajadhar. The follow-up to this side-project's debut EP, Headlines, Chandeliers In The Savannah is a fulllength that should satisfy more openminded Blood Brothers fans who just cannot get enough from the supersonic Seattle spastics. With Whitney's distinctive otherworldly shriek dominating over a sparse synth, guitar and drum machine base, at times this sounds like the more keyboard-orientated material Blood Brothers explored on last year's Crimes, at other times it's like some otherwordly minimalist cabaret. “Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On” is some weird form of minimal electro-beat salsa, “Chandeliers and Vines” is like mellow show tune with a violent tick, while “Dead Mellotron” sounds like Kraftwerk and The Magic Band gangraping a squealing pig.
POWDER MONKEYS
O U T TA C O N T R O L ROCK 'N' ROLL (DROPKICK/SHOCK)
Yet another posthumous Powder Monkeys release serving to keep the memory of the great Tim Hemenseley (R.I.P) alive, this seven-song effort delivers yet more treasure from the vaults of guitarist John Nolan. Featuring three unreleased Powder Monkeys originals recorded live at the 2001 wake for deceased God/Yes Men guitarist Sean Greenway (R.I.P) as well as four cover versions from a '95
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studio session, the sound quality is little better than a bootleg. In terms of both sound and performance, the live material here pails in comparison to the '98 liveto-air recording released a while back as Blood, Sweat and Beers. While that release was a fine introduction to the untold power of the 'Monkeys, this is not. The saving grace of the release is the four roughly-recorded studio covers, which rock along very nicely while illustrating the kinds of stuff that got Powder Monkeys off - “Lucille” by Little Richard, “Cock In My Pocket” by The Stooges, “Black Tea” by The Dogs and “I Like Pills” by The Sick Things.
RAMONES
W E I R D TA L E S O F T H E … (RHINO/WARNER)
I understand materialism is an evil thing, but fuck it, I can't help feeling ten times cooler just for owning this. Three CDs, one DVD, a comic book, a pair of 3D glasses, a Joey Dee Dee& Johnny postcard and some of the greatest rock 'n' roll tunes never to top the charts. Not too many other bands could really justify a package this extravagant, kitschy and cool (KISS being one obvious exception), a sturdy hard-bound case that opens like a book to reveal the four discs on the right and a sleeve containing a comic book and other extras on the left. Drawn by some of the masters of comic art past and present, the 54-page perfect-bound book features stunning Ramones-themed strips and artworks - including the three-page 3D piece Too Tough To Die - all reproduced on thick, high quality stock. These three CDs don't offer too much of worth that can't be found on the cheaper Ramones Anthology double-disc, but occasionally you get alternate versions of tracks, and there's one (previously released) demo called “Slug”. The DVD is nothing special