Another monster courtesy of Holy Mountain, this time around it's a split between London country-punk-experimental genre-defiers Country Teasers and Hospitals member Anthony's one man project Ezee-Tiger, making this a real cross-continental mind melter.
The LP opens with Country Teasers' side, where the unit display their prowess for short and angular take on post-rock whateverness. Total Eugene Chadbourne meets Butthole Surfers meets The Fall vibe here, as they exhibit their adept capabilities at re/misinterpreting country & western forms for their own sludged out weirdo sound. "Bung Oats" opens the side with a long nearly Swell Maps style song with a bleak palette that really moves about beneath these zonked vocal mutters slur across the whole thing like Scritti Politti covering Charlie Feathers or something. "C&W Song" is all Fall, with echoed vocals and angled, just-in-time riffs. The brief "Far Triff" is a piano melody and drum thing with scraping background sounds that bring to mind the kind of beginnings that Blues Control do--that it stops 50 seconds in before leading into the sleepy "Grand Entry and Exit of Man w/Pasta," which has some serious Kinks style British nonsense behind a loping bass line. "Space" sees near epic weirdness in the form of a pop song rendered useless by the subject matter; most of the lyrics refer only to drugs and the singer's desire "to take drugs." Pretty much right where the whole thing is at, and far be it from me to shun that. The rest of the thing is totally killer too--"Open Country," the longest track at five minutes, is a slow and stoned little gem while "Rich Tape" uses some drum machine loop to get to its nowhere and "Bury the Male Nurse's Dead Corpse" is about as jolly as its title suggests.
In stark contrast to the Country Teasers, the Ezee-Tiger side presents only two songs, both of which explore the same fuzzed nod-out territory. The common thread here seems to be the Butthole Surfers, as Ezee-Tiger too uses their psych-punk attitude and crazed acid feel. "The End (From All of a Sudden)" starts off with this little chord rhythm and vocal fits beneath layers of silt. Total blow out nowhere zone here as warm synth tones ride atop like ooze sputtering out while the drums continue in pummeling themselves into fried oblivion. The title of "Crush Medley (A Stupid Rock Opera Kinda)" pretty much says it all for the track and the album as a whole, at least attitude wise. Opening with some bird chirps and a little guitar slide hurry along to nowhere riff, the track soon delves even deeper as heavy, Dead C meets Ozzy drums and bass enter. Really rich sounds going on here, total downer vibe as acoustic guitar slips in under cries of drunken sorrow creep in before turning themselves into some kind of pop tune for the Texan undead. The track just goes on an on, moving through near metal onslaughts, almost dancey groove-rock to sign-songey campfire under the coal sessions to total bass fuzz stoner realms. Really heavy duty and a lot to deal with, but crazy good.
Total slayer disc, and another winner from the Holy Mountain folks. A split that really makes sense for both of the bands on it, and one that should garner some praise if anyone out there is listening. Worth snagging for sure.
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