Another Lash Of Bloody, Acidic Spray Paint

One of my favourite bands of the last few years has been Austin angular misanthropes Spray Paint. Their self-titled record on SS Records was an unheralded sucker punch of a record; and at the tail end of last year they followed it up with a great 7" on London's Upset The Rhythm label in Cussin and a new album in Clean Blood, Regular Acid. I have spoken about this excellent record already, but feel the need to mention it again as it is being released in Australia this month (through the excellent Homeless Records via Monofonus Press) and it inexplicably slipped through my fingers first time around.

Suffice to say that Spray Paint's third album is a tour de force of rusted and warped guitar, slow yet incessant drums, a fetid heartbeat bass and barbed, deadpan lyrics chanted with narcotic-numbed nonchalance (Homeless' head honcho Richie claimed it as his album of the year in 2014). Kicking off with the discordant twangs of seemingly incompetent musicians, the uneasy metronome that develops into a mordant urgency on opener 'Wet Beer' is maintained for the entirety of the album. 'Texas Talking Powder' comes across like Supersuckers boiled to their basest elements and lit with bare wires; 'Threesomes Can Wait' takes some of the anodyne precision of Disappears, flays it open with the brutality of a drunken butcher while The Cramps and B-52s beat each other to death with their own shoes on the crackling, blood spattered wireless radio.



There is a rich seam of American rock music at the moment that maniacally latches onto the literate outliers, intent to amuse and unseat, to entice and endanger. Parquet Courts are the light; Pile lurk in the dappled shadows; and Spray Paint twitch and mewl in the darkness, seemingly lost of faculties, ranting pitch black platitudes, all the while luring you closer and closer until you wake up, a jittering soothsayer, covered in filth, viscera and arcane words spiked in Nikko. Buy Clean Blood, Regular Acid here - you'll thank me later.

Black Surf, Sludge Gum

Black Gum are back! Those crazy guys from Austin Texas that brought is the grimy grunge garage of their self-titled cassette last year (see what I thought of it here) have a two-track 7" out called 'Surf/Sludge', and although the production is 100% cleaner, it provides further proof that the trio write great catchy tunes. You wanna know what else is awesome? They have done a whole set of Beat Happening covers in the near past. So yeah - they are awesome.

Check it out here (it's out on Monofonus Press).

Black Gum - Sludge

Fun Times With Black Gum

Last week, I came across New York via Texas sludge surfers Black Gum on a random search for something to blast me out of the doldrums of a typically terrible Neck Yourself Tuesday (much more treacherous than Death March Monday...) - and, alongside Fungi Girls' Some Easy Magic, I lived to fight another day. Black Gum's sloppy dirge-like take on the popular surf rock errs on the wrong side of caution - which is why their self-titled cassette (out on Monofonus Press) is so awesome. Whilst production values have done well for the likes of luminaries Ty Segall and Wavves, somehow I feel Black Gum would disintegrate if they came anywhere near a cleaner sound. As it stands, this is dirty without sounding put on, sloppy yet with a clear connectedness, and aggressive whilst ready to give you a bear hug after pummelling you. These are the sharp sounds that give you the warm and fuzzy's.

Grab Black Gum here.

Black Gum - Single Life
Black Gum - Back To The Beach