Sunday, May 24, 2009

Hellbender "Footprint of the American Chicken"


After listening to nothing but metal for the past 8 or 9 months, I think I may have finally reconciled my intense hatred of pop-punk with my secret love of really, really good pop-punk. And I'm OK with that.

Also, I went to see Wolves In The Throne Room at Europa last night, and it just pissed me off. I mean, they were good, but I have to say...OK, I am super anal about this stuff, but the drummer was just not up to snuff. I'm not trying to talk shit, all I'm saying is, somebody must LOVE pro-tools. Also, what is it with Black Metal bands and mixing the snare so low that you can't fucking hear it. I mean, like, at all. At one point, the (I think) confused sound person turned the snare mic up to a barely audible level, and the singer yelled at him to turn it down.

Yeah, OK, so I agree, Darkthrones' "Transylvanian Hunger" is an awesome record, and you can't really hear the snare too well on that, but (and you can impale me on an inverted jesus dildo for this if you must), it's not even their best record. Put on one of their later records, after they put a little bit more into the recording process, and lo and behold, the magic of the snare drum appears! It adds life to the song, a sense of forward motion. Even on that Burzum record, where he tried to use the worst mics possible to achieve some ridiculous outsider aesthetic, you can hear the fucking snare. What is it with all these bands who have decent recordings but try to emulate this one horrible quality that comes out when you record something on a hand held tape recorder shoved up your own ass?

Anyway, after they played, my friend Jen from Chicago tried to trick me into going to Lost and Found bar up on Greenpoint Ave. by telling me to meet her at Tommy's Tavern (a slightly less irritating shithole) after I refused to go to L&F, and then texting me after I was already there and telling me to go to L&F. Seriously? No way in hell will I be caught dead in that shit hole. Do I LOOK like I'm into shitty bands who spend all month trying to rip off Dillinger 4 and paying $5 for a glass of watered down Stella? Don't I look more like a guy who could go home, spend $3 at the beer window, get drunk in the backyard and then spend the rest of the night downloading music and jerking off? More importantly, what the fuck does any of this have to do with this pretty awesome pop-punk record by a band from North Carolina who has probably never even sacrificed a virgin?

Uhhh... well, I had to wait for the bus home for a while, and that sucked, and I bet Al Burian hates waiting for the bus, too. And there's a couple of lyrics that mention the bus. Also, once he smoked all of my friend Kevin's weed, and even though Kevin wasn't there, he should have been. So uhhh... stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

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1 comment:

Craig Hughes said...

Such a good fucking record.
When I was maybe 15 I saw Hellbender at a YMCA -- you may have been there, Duncan -- and, at the end of their set, the only thing I wanted to talk to Al Burian about was the Tilt sticker on his guitar case, and whether or not he'd heard their new record. In retrospect, I'm sure there were better things to talk about.
-Craig