(Negative Guest List)

Rocky Balboa in the meat locker, punching bovine

Meat Thump is a local group whose embracing of low production values will inevitably divide opinion. Neck Tattoo, the band’s first offering, came on cassette and is composed of a seemingly random extracts from the band’s jam sessions recorded on Dictaphone. Opener Thrashers, a song that echoes Neutral Milk Hotel, is composed of a simple four-chord progression played ad nauseam for four minutes. Vocals, when they rarely appear, are sparse and incomprehensible. Some songs, like Mechanical Sandfly In Molasses, last 25 seconds, whereas others, such as ’Til Rust, extend to nearly eight minutes. I understand the approach and I understand the aesthetic they’re attempting to conjure, but taking a holistic view, the entire tape is just a bunch of ideas rather than songs, some of them good, some of them not so good (though Codeine Intro kicks arse). It’s like someone has taken a novel, ripped pages from it at random, and then attempted to read and make sense of it. Bits and pieces are there, but the story begs for completion.

DARRAGH MURRAY

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