Beasteater
Introducing—Beasteater; press photo.
Don’t call them a supergroup but Beasteater boasts members from Dirtbombs, Bantam Rooster, Choke Chains, Fatal Figures, Blowtops and the Dirtys who give us the premiere listen to their just released self-titled album available today from Big Neck Records. Spanning the savage expanses between Buffalo & Detroit, Jim Diamond of Ghetto Recorders oversaw the recording of the Beasteater’s ferocious record that does away with all the formal niceties for something is decidedly feral & liberated from the trappings that tie & bind to appease the sterile sensitivities & subsequent judgments from the surrounding status quo.
Beasteater is the sound of the greatest cafeteria food fight or royal rumble in the bleachers gone awry that is an ensuing natural disaster that you cannot avert your ears from. “The Night Air” bursts through your speaker’s fabrics & coils with an unrelenting fury that is like a hell-bound water slide that dumps you into the doom metal slime & sludge of “I Eat Scum”. The repeated chorus of “I’m losing my mind” grounds you through the the slow then fast algorithmic equation that arranges the song between the polarities of sedated to bouncing off the ceilings, floors & walls. The mood & vibe is constantly explosive with “Candy And Fire Works” that feels like a volatile easter egg hunt happening in unstable fireworks stand, to the frantic & furious “International Rescue” that asks you “is this what you’re looking for?” while throwing as many shredding guitar licks at you as possible. But don’t think Beasteater’s slowing down yet with a little “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell”-finessing on “Scum of he Earth” that will keep you slam dancing & head banging & smiling to memorable lines like “you’re gonna make your daddy cry tonight.” Traci takes over the reigns & takes back the power that shuts down the overreaction from the actors with the “uh huh” chants, grunts & sneers of “Ovaryaction”, before the band slams you into the ground with the horror show howling “Taste The Floor” (not to be confused by the Jesus & Mary Chain song of the same name). Subtle mistakes turn mountains out of molehills with the succinct ripper “Slight Oversite” that takes us to the album’s last stand on Traci’s thunder strike storm of “Wood Shampoo” that will have you yelling back the chorus of “rinse, lather, repeat” over & over until you begin the Beasteater adventure again from side A. Tom Potter, also of Bantam Rooster, Dirtbombs, Choke Chains & more shared the following insights on the collaborative makings of the first Beasteater record:
Written in Buffalo and recorded in Detroit, the Beasteater record literally crosses the great expanse of the Rustbelt. Only Jim Diamond, Ghetto Recorders, could capture and contain the savage ugly mongrel that is the Beasteater record and only the deranged minds of Thomas, Aaron, Traci and Nick could create it.
On the opening track “The Night Air”, I invite you into my nocturnal world of debauchery and sin. “I Eat Scum” is Aaron and Traci’s ode to sexual dementia. Somewhere in there is a Swell Maps cover as well as the True Sons Of Thunder jam “Wood Shampoo”.
The songs are held together by Nick’s thunder borne drumming and Traci’s crushingly killer bass thud. These are all wrapped up in Aaron’s thick “wall of guitar” style and my trebley dissonance “TPing your house with guitar” sound.
In short, Beasteater is an ugly, ugly ride.
