Artist: Drunken Bastards
Title: Horns Of The Wasted
Type: Album
Label: Hells Headbangers

Hahaha. Just one of these days, I swear I’m going to fuck with you readers and come out with a rant about bands who openly promote drinking…through lyrics and song titles…in fact, why not?. Heaven forbid a band should drinking beer on stage or posing for photos with a beer bong. To coin a much used phrase from the Simpsons, won’t somebody please think of the children? I mean, it’s not big, it’s not clever, and it’s rarely funny...is it? Seriously though. Drunken Bastards, as the name would suggest, aren’t great fans of teetotalism. A little bit like Municipal Waste, their whole repertoire gives the impression that these five dudes live in a permanent haze of drink-fuelled chaos, that life is just one big excuse to party and headbang and knock back shots of Tequila and they are loving every minute of it. And why not? You only live once, and when the giant hangover of life comes along and these drunken bastards decide it’s time to grow up, put down the bottle and sing about “mature” things, at least it’ll have been good fun while it lasted. One gets the impression that they don’t really care about much else, and probably don’t give a flying one whether or not we dig their tunes.

This ridiculously short, 19 minute long album, is actually quite enjoyable. Those looking for something glossy and technically top-notch won’t find it here; this is fairly simple stuff that sounds both aggressive and fun, and has a great energy to it. ‘Toxic Patrol’ has an antagonistic riff that is toxic and incredibly raw, backed up with a formidable drum pattern that races forth calamitously. The vocals are kind of gruff and a tad obnoxious, reminding me of a drunken bastard slurring his words after four or five too many. ‘Destroy The Factory’ has a rollicking punkish rhythm, while ‘Posercrusher’ has some loose-sounding aggressive thrash riffs.

‘Alcoholic Big Tits’ – what a song title! That’s like you momma such a drunk when she breastfed you it was 15% proof. Really mature stuff! Again, there’s a real down and dirty punk feel to this one when it speeds up, while the bass line is really fat and heavy (and so is yo momma!) Honestly, for such a fleeting album there isn’t much more to be said…it’s all over a bit too quickly, which isn’t something I often complain at – if you’ve heard the latest Exodus album which could frankly do with being shaved by around 40 minutes, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from. I think if I paid a typical album price for this (£9.99 or above) then I’d feel cheated, but it’s worth getting hold of if you find it on the cheap and you’re a fan of thrash crossover.

http://www.myspace.com/drnkenbastards