Wednesday 7 February 2007



Lebenden Toten - State Laughter (Feral Ward)

It is sux when you spill half of your cider all over your 4-track. It's bad enough when your mate Tix falls asleep with a smoke in his fingers and almost burns down your goddamn brown sofa, your copy of Swankys-control and them Nuclear Addicts back patches what vez done; but lubricating your 4-track, shit, how are you going to record your piss-raw, sub-demo quality records?Lebenden Toten seems to have mastered the above on their “State Laughter” record. A collection of releases by these PDX filf-kickers; it has all the characteristics of confuse and disorder, albeit, without a fraction of the hooks that made those bands stand out from the plethora of the rararas, the murmur murmur murmurs, and the rattatatats of similar outfits. The atonal nature of the guitars provides some truly grating moments that even rival watching your grandmother trying to operate a VCR in ‘’get me the fuck outta here’’ levels. The Oscar the Grouch drum sound is more akin to a piece of sheet metal being continuously dropped in a factory environment than an actual Moon the Loon swift-one. A decapitated Yardbird with bound feet provides the vocal delivery whilst trying to navigate an ice skating rink. The bass rumbles out some chaotic, shitstorm lines, however, nothing of the rhythmic devastation of say ‘’No War No Nukes’’.Ultimately, this has a pretty decent taste. Perhaps if one owned the records themselves, one could properly digest these chunks in generous, yet chewable portions. However, this is a bloody Hungry jacks upgrade, minus the meat, with a thirty cent cone and a side of onion rings! And whilst I enjoy a Bacon Deluxe now and then, I can’t quite iron guts an upgrade like I used to be able to. Oh and by the way, Tix is alright, he just burnt his home-made knuckle tatts a bit.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

yeah this band fucking rages
half the tracks you can't even tell if the guitar is actually being played or if it's just static being manipulated through guitar pedals.

Anonymous said...

Great band. I love these guys because I can be falling asleep at the super boring job of mine at the viagra online office and they can still wake me up in a matter of a few seconds. So much power on their hands!