Cowbones

When I mentioned French band Cowbones late last year, I mentioned that I was very excited about their upcoming album, Vox Populi Polux. This anticipation was based on the above photograph and one track only, 'New Cobonnies'. I compared them to Grinderman, Jon Spencer and other rampant psychobilly misanthropes - and that comparison still stands. But Cowbones are a much stranger beast than this acknowledgement. Opening with the staccato drum machine and organ combo with warped vocals of 'No Law', we realise that these punks are unique in their derangement. 'Cramp' seems devoted to The Cramps/The Mummies et al, thus the name, but then there is the sparse, distorted dance-punch of 'Honey' or the syncopated belch of 'My Room'. 'Pink' whips out the Theremin and takes us down into the sordid Underworld. Most of the lyrics whether Gallic or English are delivered from a megaphone made out of rusted aluminium and razor wire. It's a special brand of hell that I for one subscribe to wholeheartedly.

You can grab Vox Populi Polux (out now through Casbah Records) here.

Flaying The Cow From My Bones

Here is a distorted chugging Western thug disaster classic if I've ever heard one. Probably haven't, but this is what I imagine it to be. French outfit Cowbones are bringing out their new album Vox Populi Pollux on Casbah Records (The Future Primitives, Bits Of Shit, Mesa Cosa) and first cut feels like a demented bastard child of Grinderman and John Spencer Blues Explosion if their dirtiest dirge got caught in a timeloop. The masked madmen look a sight to behold, and if this track is anything to go by, this album is going to melt the bones of the most hardened gunslingers. Colour me excited.

Missing The Mesa Cosa Spangola

As much as I love this wide brown land we call Australia, it isn't always the most accepting of places. Sure, we are pretty multicultural (look at all the sushi joints!), but there are a lot of grey generationers, VB swilling deadheads, happy clapper xenophobes and just plain ignorant pluggers that don't get what that word even means - yet it frightens them, which makes them defensive, which leads to abject aggression. Sigh. If only we could sic Mesa Cosa onto them - a nationwide trailer campaign as the Melbourne-based scuzz rockers rip through their Spanish-drenched garage crashers, get everyone naked and point out the fact that the colour of your skin doesn't matter when everyone looks stupid without clothes on. These Davila 666 clones only know one way to party, and that's all out, all inclusive, all the time.

Now their Infernal Cakewalk album came out some time ago, but it made the march into global waters on the turn of the year, and something this deliciously deranged needs championing no matter what day of the week it is. Mesa Cosa - Or How You Dropped Being A Bigot And Learned To Love The Fuzz. Get it here through French label Casbah Records, otherwise pilfer the party from here.