Haggard Bastard – “Demo”
Well, Honest John, from the band Honest John, told me he had a new band. A band that was more Vermont based. After verifying it wasn’t Phish, I expressed my interest.
“Yeah, we named the band after you,” Dan said. See, his real name isn’t John and honestly, I’m not quite sure it’s Dan, but this info caused my nipples to perk up immediately.
So I’m thinking- Hmm, what could the name of this band be? “Tremendous Writer” or “God Amongst Men?” Maybe “Impeccable Dresser” or “Collapsible Nightstand.” I settled upon “World’s Prettiest Boy.”
You can understand my chagrin, my consternation, when I found out the band’s name was Haggard Bastard! Copious pools of tears dripped from my eyes, cascading waterfalls of liquid fell across my non-existent cheekbones, a typhoon of tears threatened to wipe out an entire colony of blackheads.
But now I have seen I’ve wasted too much of your time with my pitiful sorrows. It’s time to get down to the business at hand.
Haggard Bastard is a band with hardcore lyrics and vocals but with music that combines early punk, garage, experimental and even the dreaded (gasp!) indi!
I’m not sure how this recipe looks on paper and frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a fuck.
Because this is red-hot uncontested goodness, fire to the flames greatness. Imagine Kiss as a hardcore band- No! Strike that- imagine Pearl Jam as if no one from the band was actually involved- No! Strike that- imagine if the Dave Matthews band were all killed in a fiery, road accident but came back to life as zombies and started a retro-swing band- Now, we’re talking!
Perhaps instead of me having such fanciful notions we should, instead, just listen to how it plays.
An aggressive, descending bass line starts off “Blood Dance” with a slashing guitar cutting into vital organs, leaving entrails here and there. Then, when the vocals comes in, it’s like two meteors colliding as the rhythm is just a rush of pure energy, like a shot of adrenalin to bring back an o’d or a flashlight up the ass of the world to reawaken it. “A sky with no stars/ A mind full of scars/ Trade your world with me/ I WANT YOUR WORLD.” The guitars and drums whirl and twirl in a dark maelstrom of suggested violence and blackout sensory overload. There’s a sort of ramshackle breakdown/ slowdown/ hoedown only to come back in twice as fast and strong. Back up a roller-coaster that smashes leaving a whole in the sky or maybe that’s just the side of my head (so hard to tell) that’s just how hard this song hits me, how hard this song just blows me away.
After a little sample, spoken bit, “Razor Tongue Blues” comes in with its lo-fi production, guitars blurred and the vocals strong above. But the energy, the passion and the venom is all turned to eleven. “Still waking up alone/ To a disappearing figure/ You stay with me/ Long after the blur.” This is a straight ahead, four chords, energy pushed blast of exploding power that ignites a flame of fury that singes all homes and worlds to the ground. Towards the end the bass gets a bit more irritated, the guitars start to shout and complain and the vocals plead, “Don’t give up on me. Don’t give up.” But give up on hearing better hardcore than this.
“Inner Animal”starts with some slashing chords, slicing into your cranium, performing dollar store lobotomies before the band and vocals abruptly pushes their way in. The rhythms are just like a drunk bouncing off the walls, a pinball ricocheting off the side of a machine. “The beauty of silence,” as the singer hurls himself across the floor, “The horror of alone,” as the drums throws some punches, revolving but not resolving. “I can’t choose which,” a feedback stop and chop, “I deserve more.” You deserve this like society deserves an ice pick in the eye. “Look me in the eyes/ Cold blue ice/ Trace the circles/ Burn with me tonight.” This song is the sound of a man tap dancing on the ledge of a sky scraper with his eyebrows on fire and he doesn’t fall, he just glides into a cyclone of warm madness.
“Trance” starts with the rhythm section playing against a frantic drum beat that might lead into a jazz samba but instead leads into a nightmare of society’s soul. “Now it’s all a nightmare and you can’t touch me now.” Somewhere along this punk/ hardcore/ garage song the major chords turn into minor ones and the heart of the song is blatantly displayed. “I think of everything I ever said/ One more time onto nothing/ I think of everything we ever did/ One more time into nothing.” A relationship guided by and blinded by and eventually, turned upside down by love- into hate. And the heartbreak of living is a knife thrust into your soul that hurts more than death, rips you apart- scarred, ravaged and believing in nothing except the heart of this song.
I guess this is the part where I sum it all up.
Well, I don’t know about you, but this is some of the best stuff I’ve heard all year. How’s that for involved analytical evaluation?
I can tell you this album will be in my top five at the end of the year and I only have one other album I can say that about so far.
With all the different elements at work here, this band makes me think of The Pixies as if they were just forming now. The rhythms are sometimes all over the place, the production muddy but the music screams pure high-wire excitement- frantic and insane with glee, while the lyrics reflect broken heartededness, despair and defeat.
And Honest John or Dan or Matilda or whatever alias he’s using this week has always been a great front man but here I think he really shines the best.
We know of only know two other bands from Vermont and one of them, Midnight Saints, has a member in this band. Vermont, though I think it’s the prettiest New England state, has, I think, only about one hundred people in it. It is in fact the least populated state. So how did they come up with something so great? This is the most exciting and creative album of the year.
So in my final involved analytical evaluation I have to say…
THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT
THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT
THIS IS GREAT THIS IS GREAT THIS IS So FUCKIN’ GREAT
(Slimedog)
