Saturday, February 9, 2008

Flamin' Werepigs - Hellway to High LP (Kato Records)

I found this Kato records vinyl release of Palmerston North's garage rock band, The Flamin' Werepigs at Slowboat records in their rare and interesting bin. It turns out it's not really all that rare as Kato records, Smokecds and a few other places have mail order copies.

The band is fronted by veteran Palmerton punk band frontman, Boris (ex-Ethiopian Lard Farmers, Blunt etc) and helping out on Drums is Sowboy Badger(who fronted the Ashvins )who supported ALL when they played at the stomach.
The two other members go by the alisases of Rev. M.Pune(guitar) and Puck Weiner(drums). One reviewer at Savage Magazine states that The Flamin' Werepigs sound a lot like The Datsuns annother says it sounds like The Scientists mixing hard rock. As these guys were knocking around in the late 90s, I'd guess The Datsuns comparison is used because they're the New Zealand garage band most people know. The Scientists comparison is more accurate. This is far more lo-fi and there are a few AC/DC hard rock blues swagger riffs here and there however on my first listen John Spencer Blues Explosion came to mind although The Flamin' Werepigs budget was obviously far lower. I wish the vocals had been stronger but ultimately who cares when the overall lo-fi sound is actually very good.

As this has Kato Music 002 I guess it was the Andrew Tolley (ex-Hasselhoff Experiment)'s label second release. Good on him for getting it out.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Crucified - Pillars of Humanity


A couple of days ago the new Metallica album was rumoured to have leaked. Many people including myself downloaded the album only to find out it was a Christian metal band called Eternal Decision. It's possible the whole thing was Metallica's continuing quest for revenge on those who share music as if releasing St.Anger and poorly ripping off the Misfits(in the form of the song, Vulturous) isn't enough revenge on both file sharers and the general public.

Anyhow the whole debacle reminded me of a Christian crossover band named The Crucified who released an album called The Pillars of Humanity back in 1991 if the lyrics weren't taken notice of could pass for Short Sharp Shock or Municipal Waste or even D.R.I.

The band claim that they were influenced by a Bay Area band called Corrupted Morals and a straight edge band called Head First. On Pillars of Humanity Slayer influences can definitely be heard in places.

The lyrics are often the repent or die type nonsense and have the usual self-righteousness of fundamentalists. However the best song Mindbender seemed like an attack on mindless drones who do nothing but sit around and watch TV all day which is easier to relate to.

The song Fellowship of Thieves which appears on The Pillars of Humanity album can be heard on The Crucified myspace page


The Crucified's Pillars of Humanity album can be downloaded here.

Beastwars - IV

After over a year off for various reasons, we have returned solely because we wanted to review the new Beastwars album. I really w...