Slovenly Records Turns 10 In Slovenly Style

Nevada label Slovenly Records run a pretty tight ship, and the four releases they launched upon the unsuspecting masses in lieu of their tenth birthday recently are killer, somehting like the Wicked Witch of the West's winged monkeys, except these fuckers bite hard and have ebola.


Let's kick off with Hated By The Sun, the debut record from Canadian bumpkin punks Hellshovel (unsurprisingly featuring members of King Khan & the Shrines. I love this warped Down Home style of rockabilly garage - it reminds me of Meth Teeth, except more awake and adept at their instruments. Don't get me wrong, these hillbilly hoedowns are medicated, but with more uppers than you can shake a rock bag at, plus the occasional lacings of LSD psych melts to ensure that there is no solid footing here. Impressive.



This next record is the first one of the batch I heard, and sucked me in entirely. The band: Sultan Bathery, an Italian trio addicted to Indian idolatry and backwoods fetishes marketed for the upper classes. The release: Fireworx, a 7" masterclass on gentrified swamp box swagger and sleaze. This Europhiliacs want to have their way with you, and they'll be damned if you won't enjoy yourself.




Next flavoursome international band to the plate is Gay Anniversary, a Greek outfit whose 10" New In Class record is a short bulb blast to the face. Consisting of screams, chants, rants, guitar squalls and one strapped out drum machine, this is visceral punk that annoys as much as it invigorates, which is precisely the point. The speed and violence on display will eviscerate. I expected to enjoy some of this - not thrashing the shit out of it. Nihilist sex on a sonic stick, yum yum.




Rounding out these heavy hitters is The Psyched and their eponymous debut. This is 9 slabs of seriously dirty psych rock n roll - like resin-caked dirty. This is hair-flicking, lip-licking, disease-riddled rock, and you know it, but you can't resist because you know you'll have the best night of your life. A slow death is worth that, right? This Brooklyn duo don't care either way - just another chiselled notch on their bedpost of rock.



Get these four stellar releases here. If you don't have a great balltearer of a weekend after listening to these, you are dead to me.

Backwards Looking Forwards 2011 - Bad Sports, AIDS Wolf, Acid Baby Jesus

OK, so here are three more releases that I "discovered" over my two-month sabbatical that, whilst not anything overly groundbreaking, were a hell of a lot of fun.


Bad Sports, on their 2nd LP Kings Of The Weekend, have chiseled out some major disaffected pop rock that'll tear holes in the seat of your jeans. The Denton, Texas trio are made for summer benders with a sleazy bent. Dirtnap Records put out this fun-loving, fuzzy gem, and it reverently does what it says on the tin. I guess there are elements of Bare Wires about Bad Sports, albeit with more protopunk snarl, which makes me like these guys all the more.

Bad Sports - Can't Just Be Friends


Richie Follin's sister Madeline of Cults' fame will be here on Saturday as a part of the Laneway festival, so it would be remiss of me to mention Guards' Do It Again 7" that came out in December that I found quite delectable. Put out by White Iris, these tracks cement two facts - that Richie Follin knows how to pen a heck of a hook, and that they need to bring out their debut album STAT.

Guards - Do It Again


There was a stage when I seemed to be listening to a lot of Athens, Georgia acts back in 2010 - kickstarted probably by my love of Tunabunny - and it's more than possible that Acid Baby Jesus is going to bring that love full circle. Yet these clowns are from the "other" Athens - the one that proclaims to be the capital of Greece, the starting point (and possibly the endpoint - oh, political controversy!!) of civilisation as we know it. Their self-titled debut came out in October last year on Slovenly Recordings, and it sounds like another 2011 fave of mine, Human Eye, in its insistence of sounding like psych punk played by Ming The Merciless off Flash Gordon. Such space jams are morbid and strange, and oh so goddamn rad. This is a pretty killer album, and may have made the top 40 of 2011 if I'd heard it sooner. 2012 also has them firing up to join the biggest and best lineup yet for the Austin Psych Fest. Live long and prosper, you awesome weirdos.

Acid Baby Jesus - Tooth To Toe