This nasty little bastard was shat out the bowels of Chicago in 2008 but crept right under the radar then and has now been resurrected by the peeps at Diabolical Conquest Records. I was more than happy to see what this lot were like as mentions of Eyehategod and Godflesh seem to surround the group, a quartet who have been around since 2002. It would appear that they have two other studio albums and a live one prior to this and I am guessing that now they appear to be signed, this could be an appetite wetter for some new material.
On first listen I was reminded of the sort of band that one used to stumble into high on chemical accompaniments to squat parties or venues like the old and sadly missed hole that was The George Robey late at night. There always used to be a band playing whose name you tried desperately to find out and who sounded like the best and strangest thing you had up to that point ever encountered. What I am saying here is that this lot strike me as really knowing their drugs, this is all about making a noise designed around a mixture of Class A’s and watching the chaos and seeing if your audience was literally going to sink or swim.
There is a right sludgy sound behind opener ‘My Sins’ and vocals from Honkey Head (they all have suitably assumed names) are mangled and effect laden distorted. There is a strong electronic and sampled racket going on in the background behind the more traditional and heavy rumble of bass and crunch of drums and snares. The vocals sound like you are listening to them on acid and have a real intense psychedelic sheen to them that have me thinking of bands such as 2000DS, The ORoonies and Dread Messiah all from the crust, squat scene in England rather than the bands this lot have been likened to. Everything warps and snarls away and this is quite uncomfortable listening, without vocal effects I hear the EHG likeness as well as the nasty vibe of say Iron Monkey but this lot really are quite unique and have a style all of their own. ‘Death Threats’ is a long and torturous slab of acerbic noise, effects give out lots of whistling feedback which sounds like fireworks going off over what essentially strikes as a loose one take jam. ‘Communion’ sees it all turned up a notch with a solid pounding, albeit slow mindset and the vocals really screamed out. ‘China Black (Heroin pt.2)’ gets the live treatment and proves the sonic sounds and gloom laden monotonous noise goes down just as well on stage. There is also a cover included and one I thought was familiar, ‘Burundi (reconstruct)’ was originally done by industrial super-group Pigface and although fairly different from the original still retains the warped hyperdelic groove.
Drug Honkey are no doubt an unmitigated noise to most people but I really enjoyed this perhaps more so as it was completely different from what I was actually expecting. Hopefully this is not the last I will hear from them.
http://www.myspace.com/drughonkey
