Amphetamine Reptile Records – 16th July 2023 (CD, DL) / 23rd July 2023 (LP)
Christopher Nosnibor
The late 80s and early 90s were my time in terms of musical discovery. Door seemed to open door seemed to open door… and these were exciting times, too. There was a lot happening, and a lot of it was noisy. While endless column inches were given to Sub Pop – and not wrongly – two other labels stood out to me at this time: Touch and Go, and Amphetamine Reptile, the former home to the likes of Shellac, and Girls Against Boys, the latter, Cows, Helmet, Tar, Dwarves, and the mighty Melvins. It’s hard to overstate the importance of these labels at the time. But latterly, Sub Pop turned pop, releasing fay indie by Fleet Foxes, while cranking out reissues of the albums that put them on the map as the home of the ‘Seattle Sound’, and Touch and Go reduced its roster significantly few years after The Butthole Surfers hauled them to court over (lack of) contractual issues, releasing only a handful of more commercially-orientated artists in recent years.
And then there’s AmRep. They’ve kept on doing what they do. The label never put out masses of releases per year, and perhaps that’s been a factor in its sustainability, focusing on curation. That, and the fact that The Melvins’ output alone is enough to keep the label both busy and afloat. A label dedicated to alternative and noise rock, Mr.Phylzzz are right at home here.
Fat Chance, the third album from Mr.Phylzzz, and which swiftly follows its 2022 predecessor, Cancel Culture Club, promises a ‘a distinct tonal shift while staying true to the band’s signature style’ and ‘an unrelenting, dynamically charged experience, described by the band as their most straightforward and focused record yet.’
It was recorded at Electrical Audio studios, a fact which speaks for itself, and the tracks were laid in just four days. Having road-tested the material in advance, the recordings capture a big, dense live sound and a real sense of immediacy. And there is very much a sense not only of focus, but of purpose, which radiates from the songs, and the sound quality and production is much improved but with no loss of power. Squalling noise and cacophony has yielded to tight structures and slugging grooves.
‘Pontiac Grand-Am’ brings blistering slabs of guitar and pumping drums, driven by a wild energy, and it’s one hell of a way to start an album. With Clinton Jacob’s yelping vocal style, I’m reminded of Electric Six and Pulled Apart by Horses, although it’s the latter they clearly bear the closer overall sonic resemblance. But the difference is that this mad, manic chaos of noise is created by just two guys instead of a full band. And this is a mad, manic noise that takes no breathers. The majority of the songs are two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half minutes long and are defined by absolutely piledriving riffs.
‘Maybe’ takes what starts out sounding like a fairly standard Nirvana-inspired riff and then chops it into a jarring, stuttering churn. The first six songs are crammed into sixteen eye-popping minutes without a second’s let-up, and it leaves you panting, your heart palpating.
And then there’s the obligatory long song to bring the curtain down, and the seven-minute ‘Pick Scrape’ delivers what it says on the tin, an experimental instrumental with a pick scape that builds through a series of crashing crescendos, something that’s somewhere between no-wave and avant-garde jazz, and one hundred percent racket.
If stylistically, Fat Chance has its roots in grunge and the noise rock sound of the 90s, it’s also an extremely contemporary album, and not just on account of duos being very much en vogue (although as likely a fashion borne out of practicality and necessity in terms of logistics and finances in this direst period of capitalism yet, which finds the artist at the bottom of the pile when it comes to making their work pay). Sonically, and in terms of its delivery, and its all-out, in-yer-face attack, Fat Chance is an album of the now – and it’s a blinder.
AA
Aural Aggravation 