When considering giving up time and/ or cash to any new album, the titles of the tracks can reach out to you and say something – such as JFK Speedwagon … I Want To Punch Bruce Springsteen In The Dick … Quadruple ZZ Top …
OK, I’m in! Welcome to Bummersville.
The titles recall some similar bon mots from the legendary Lightning Bolt (USA Is A Psycho, Husker Don’t, Van Halen 2049) and Bummer, the Kansas City punk/ noise rock/ sludge trio, are masters of the riff-tastic, in-your-face, boot-on-the-throat, confrontational stuff. The Boss beware – in fact, “bosses” everywhere, beware.
A track called E1M1 recalls a 19th Century alien visitation and Kid Spock takes us to deep space via sci-fi writer Tom Godwin, while on JFK Speedwagon, Bummer yearn: “I wish I could create my own set of physics to hurl this earth into the suns of distant solar systems.” But Dead Horse’s primary concerns are the here and now, the struggle to survive day to day in the place you’re in. The lyrics to I Want To Punch … don’t exactly make clear the grudge against Bruce but let’s just say Bummer’s modus operandi and philosophy sit apart from any romanticism concerning those who struggle to work the land, or any “heartland rock” tendencies whatsoever.
On Quadruple ZZ Top the story is: “The dust is permeating, black mud begins to clog my lungs/ whatever the sun leaves you, locusts will take/ no such thing as fertile land round these parts/ black clouds they seem to tumble over the stretch of these great plains watching the land discipline us for man’s ignorance …”
Yes, the blackest of black humour and the straightest of faces are part of the approach but these guys aren’t messing around. There is an oh so tangible frustration and righteous fury as Matt Perrin’s guitars and vocals, Mike Gustafson’s rumbling, rousing bass and Sam Hutchinson’s pounding, juddering drums meld and weld and slew into a combined howl of scathing derision and disillusionment. Life in the Midwest as portrayed here makes Springsteen’s Nebraska look like a rural idyll and there is an even darker than dark darkness on the dark, darker, darkest edge of town.
These guys started out with Young Ben Franklin back in 2013 (Hutchinson wasn’t yet in the band) when they were really not much more than kids and now have developed into fine, aggressive, intense players. There is little respite in the bludgeoning cacophony until the almost dippy opening to Magic Cruel Bus, which also contains some little bits and twists that sound like The Fall and/ or The Pixies. Sean Ingram of Coalesce adds guest vocals to JFK Speedwagon and Juice Pig. Portrayal Of Guilt’s Matt King is on Donkey Punch.
Dead Horse by Bummer is out now on Thrill Jockey Records