(San Diego, CA 12/12/07) Grand Ole Party must drink gasoline before going on stage. The band, consistently hell bent frenzied, resurrects all the ghosts of the voodoo that brewed rock and roll. Within the trio’s sound, the rough and tumble rawness of the blues thunders a strutting pathos converging with the manic intensities of honky tonk and untamed garage punk.

A lone fire guitar viciously onslaughts like a full army. Drums sound soothingly unkept, while snakelike bass maps the bottom end. Vocals are in the red, yet the instruments are not reduced to some awful prop for the typical ego-drunk front person.

Kristen Gundred feverishly batters drums while simultaneously yelping constant bluesy abjections. Her delivery strikes feral violence coupled with a primitive dark sexuality. Gundred’s delivery is like a hurricane flinging out deadly daggers. No clever irony exists when she is credited with microphone, as she is constantly pushing towards a red distorted oblivion.

Lyrically, Gundred pursues a mystical sensibility that mingles with day to day ugliness and ballsy bravado. She pulls off lyrics that are intelligently dumb, full of piss and vinegar. Her language paints the true cruel United States of class struggles and sandcastle emotions warped in the worn weathered strangeness of deserts, dirty cities, torturous highways and murky swamps.

Sleazy and seductive, Turn On, Burn On struts with a swinging dark alley funk. Gundred’s lyrics enact strange word gymnastic staggering with lines like “I think I jumped alongside the curb/with you in the gutter hotstepping clutter.”

Pathos fueled like a raging drunk in a muddy ditch, Roll on down attempts to show the band not constantly spitting in the listener’s ears. Contextually comical, tempo almost slows down to torch lights, yet what one gets instead is an over amplified power dirge that feels like a darting animal in a cage. Vocals attain quieter moments, while also the guitar lets out a charred bluesy solo.

Harrowingly convincing, mental illness runs rampant within the bluntly tilted Insane, which pursues a tug of war between a panic attack and schizophrenia. Guitars cut like red neck hunting knives, while the rhythm section creates dark, militant overtones.

The flaws dogging Humanimals (DH Records) reside in a lack of diversity throughout, then cruelly, belatedly annoying the listener with the album closing Radio (scientist remix), which pursues a dub reggae tangent. The effect is disorienting and off-putting.

Like the Quakers who allow the Holy Spirit to surge through the contemptible body, the band really lets loose. Humanimals won’t change your life, but it will kick you around your back yard while forcing moonshine down your throat.

Turn On Burn On:
Roll On Down:
Insane:
Radio (Scientist Remix):

- By Matthew D. Proctor for The Stonewailer

Matthew Proctor resides (technically) in Stone Mountain, Georgia warding off despondent confederate soldiers.  He spends his days and nights in a frenzy balancing the impossible task of making ends meet while pursuing creative pursuits such as urban archeology, obscure poetic explorations and two bands, which seem to make people uneasy.  He also likes to crawl in muddy ditches away from capitalism’s fierce banter in whiskey and wine hazes.  He has a black whiny cat named Montag who has severe mental health issues.