Band : Heavy Heavy Low Low
Album title : Turtle Nipple And The Toxic Shock
Label : Ferret Music
Distributor : Suburban
Release date : 19/08/2008
Release : CD

Formed in 2004 by singer Robbie Smith, guitarists Danny Rankin and Ryan Madden, bassist Chris Fritter and his drumming brother Andrew, the positively disturbed San Diego based Heavy Heavy Low Low first gained Underground fame with the release of their Courtside Seats To The Greatest Fuck Of All Time EP, which already displayed their wide array of influences from Hardcore, Mathcore, Grindcore, Screamo, and Experimental. From the get-go, the band also benefited from a very positive and expansive word-of-mouth and Internet hype (especially by MySpace owner Tom, who put no less than 10 tracks – one in two versions – on several pages). The quintet also immediately set out on an extensive touring schedule, expanding their fanbase even more with the release of their Fuck It EP (which features their then best known song "Tell Shannon Her Crafts Are Ready", and has apparently been given an "official" status with a re-issue in 2007).

The band signed to Ferret Music subsidiary New Weathermen Records imprint in June 2006, and saw their official 11-track debut Everything's Watched, Everyone's Watching released in the US on September 19 that same year (in Europe the album apparently came a bit later, with as result the posting of a review by then collegue Trik on Nov. 17). Not surprisingly, the quintet now got much higher profile tours offered, starting off in Sept. and Oct. on a tour with Ed Gein, Ligeia (hum...entered a review of that band's latest at the same time as this one), and Nights Like These, while Nov. saw the boys on tour with Psyopus and See You Next Tuesday. During 2007 the band's toured all over the US with Fear Before The March Of Flames and Poison The Well before hitting the road again with the Sounds Of The Underground touring festival (the bill of which included, amongst others, Amon Amarth, Chimaira, Darkest Hour, Every Time I Die, Goatwhore, Gwar, Job For A Cowboy, The Acacia Strain, The Devil Wears Prada, and This Is Hell) during July and August. I'm not sure what the boys did after that (because the info is lacking) touringwize, but certain is that they did a European tour with Fear Before The March Of Flames and The End, ended 2007 with a headlining tour supported by Foxy Shazam and Tera Melod, and jumped back into a studio with their good friend Sam Pura (previously worked with North, Strata, Seize The Night, and on the HHLL EP that caught New Weathermen's attention) earlier this year.

When it comes to the band's music, which has more than often been labelled "Spazzcore" (perhaps not a well chosen categorisation, because I feel that the madness found in some of the songs has a strong undercurrent coherence, in stead the lability that comes with pure experimentation or improvisation), I have to say that it can be rather different from track to track. Singer Robbie describes the material as "The Beach Boys on acid, basically," and this because the band truly incorporate a Surf Rock, spacey vibe instead of the break-downs usually employed by a majority of current-day Hardcore bands. He also mentions that the new album shows the progress the band went through in the last two years, because the recordings for the debut were kinda rushed at a moment when the band actually wasn't ready to enter the studio yet. Well, this time the guys took their time in the studio, even got narked by the fans for not letting anything heard of themselves for so long...but the result is a beauty. Track length is usually short, with occasional more sane and structured sounding songs being alternated against total freak-out spastic tracks with odd time signature and mood changes. In between, you'll get the occasional Ambient-like "experimentation", which takes an extreme format after official album closer "Please, That Bitch Will Outlive Us All", as a looped/ sampled repetitive 12 ½-minute bridge towards the short (some 70 seconds or so) hidden track with its weird Industrial/ Funk overtones (I've read it described somewhere in a very appropriate way as "Trent Raznor meets Parliament dunk drug funk")! Then also, the band brings a very surprisingly coherent (in fact, it's the most serious song on the album) cover of Black Flag's "Wasted".For more detailed descriptions track-by-track, surf to sambura.tumblr.com (no "www" needed), for audio of two new songs, surf to myspace.com/heavyheavylowlow (where you'll also find mp3 files to 4 older songs – more older songs, as I said, can be found by using MySpace creatively).

Personally, I've found a new favourite band, and I'm certainly going to order a copy of whatever the guys have out (including the new album, because the editor-in-chief's already got his name on it). Hum...would there be any vinyl, I wonder? Meanwhile, the only things that's left for me to do is to nominate Turtle Nipple And The Toxic Shock (wonderfully nutty title...and how about that psychedelic album cover artwork, eh?) into my "best Albums Of 2008"-list!

98/100

Tony.