Lambsbread - Black Starliner / The First Four Days [self released]

Sometimes I think Lambsbread are my new favourite band. Such a thing mostly happens when I'm in need of beer, getting it and drinking it to no end. Good feeling, every once in a while.

I scooped up these two cd-r's while I was at the ATP fest, together with a cheapo looking tape I haven't even played yet. The only tapedeck I have sits next to my bed and that's not to place where I'd be mostly likely found listening to Lambsbread to be honest. Yeah, it's heavy shit, and fuzzy. Or huzzy, if you like (sic). Both are especially crafted tour cd-r's in editions of 25 so I don't think there's a chance you'll get them at your favourite distro. Try ebay, get ripped off! Oh, I think ebay banned me by the way, for refusing to pay $25 shipping costs for Wolf Eyes' River Slaughter LP out of Canada. $25! Shipping costs! Insane!

The Black Starliner cd-r starts with some cruel heavy metal shredding not suited for people who think technique is where it's at. First track starts as an avalanche of distorted fuzz and splashing cymbals moving with the speed of a Philippine mudslide. Inside this unholy mess are some really shifty dynamics, micro solo's buried underneath, a sudden rush of cymbal crashes. The energy never ceases and the mud thickens with every minute. The second track, they're all without a title of course, sounds like a grindcore track stretched out endlessly and buried underneath ten feet of that thick mud I talked about earlier. There's no clear sound detectable, except for some spurts of cymbal splashes it's all party at the fuzzy side of the moon.

If you dig clarity, or at least audible guitar fuckery than The First Four Days should be right up your Lambsbread alley. There's some similarity with the Magik Markers sound except for the fact that Lambsbread never ever stop shredding. The first track of this cd-r is way more patchy than anything on Black Starliner but it also comprises some really intensive fuzz solo's gone really, really bad. It's like the worst recorded heavy psych track ever. In Lambsbread's case you have to know this is actually a good thing. Very good, even. The 24 minutes take some dips in more at ease waters but the piercing guitar wails never leave completely, if in lesser volume or making room for the let-loose approach of the drummer, they always stick to the back of the track.

Second track starts fucking creepy, sounding like a doomed black metal intro bit stretched into several minutes while slowly evolving into a minimal incantation of Nels Cline's impro guitar tactics mashing with sludgecore's foggy vibrations. The real winner on this album though is the fourth and last track, reminding me of their killer ATP set. Heavy, heavy shit for fed up guitar freaks in dire need of something that gushes the blood to all the wrong places.