Brisbane band Slug Guts are about as far away from the pop band of yore as you can safely be, without drowning in a turbulent sea of profanities and self-harm. Throbbing bass-lines, pulsing drums, jarring guitars and the vocal delivery of a man living under perennial sufferance: this is music to render the mood of any social gathering one of darkness, desperation and evil. Slug Guts aren’t in the business of music to shine light into anyone’s life: cop a glance at Slug Guts’ world and you’ll see a mirror reflection of the dysfunctional margins of human existence.
And that, counter intuitively, is why Slug Guts’ latest record, Howlin’ Gang, is even better than their debut effort. The opening track, Howlin’, is a stumble down the festering back lanes of a threatening inner city environment where every chasm is potentially filled with a psychotic interlocutor; if the mood improves on Cold Bones, it’s only enough to delay the inevitable sonic bludgeoning that comes with Chrome Crucifix.
Like a Thomas Hardy novel set in the festering, poverty-stricken slums of 19th century Sydney, Slug Guts’ lyrical themes are not for the faint hearted. The song titles tell it all: Praggin’ The Cowboy, Hangin’ In The Pisser, Down In The Hole. Skip through to Down In The Mornin’ Sun, and you’re wandering bleary eyed through the streets of Any Shit Town, USA, looking for enlightenment and finding only human detritus and sociological dystopia.
On Ma there’s an invigorating pump in the step and the thin veneer of hope; by Town Tied shards of Scientists-strength guitar are slicing through your cerebral architecture with ne’er a care for your cognitive safety. White Cross finds spirit within bleakness; Wild Country is the angry drunk defaming your entire pathetic existence, and making plenty of good points along the way.
Don’t buy this record is your looking for the next big pop thing – but if you want to know what music is lying at the bottom of the Brisbane sewer, this is for you.
Best Track: Howlin’
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, THE SCIENTISTS and WITCH HATS.
In A Word: Sludge
GLENN TRIMBLE
