This will get a slew of shit promos sent to MV, I know that but….there’s pretty much no easier way to get to me listen to your stuff than put “has echoes of Clutch” somewhere in your band bio.
See, to your balding, beardy, uncool chap in his mid 40s (not me you understand), Neil Fallon is our God. So when Beastwood’s EP arrived with those words, well….you know.
Now, I do get that Maryland’s finest have written the odd strange in lyric in their time: “Before I could complete it, I was quickly overtaken/By the angry spirits of Ronald and Nancy Reagan”, has always been a favourite of mine, as it happens. However, well I am not sure that even Clutch have ever tried to incorporate the words to The Golden Girls theme tune in a metal song.
Beastwood, on the other hand, well Beastwood have “Girls Of Gold” and I was driving to work listening to this, and its wittering on about “thank you for being a friend,” and all the rest, and it clicked.
Now The Golden Girls will probably mean diddly squat to anyone under the age of …oooohh….45, but it wasn’t bad. The plot was best summed up as Friends before Friends as a load of horny old women in a retirement home cracked wise.
Somehow, it kinda suits Beastwood too. Check out the front cover. Then understand that the first song on “The Long Road To Ho” is called “Electric Gangbang” and I am here to tell you that this isn’t one of those classy ones either. Not at all. This is the type where all the men and women look like they work in Poundland.
That is to say, this is raw, nasty, greasy, and finger lickin’ good. “Denim Venom” grooves like it wants to do freaky stuff, and it doesn’t even matter that no one knows what its about, rather it’s about feeling.
“Degenerated” begins with some fool asking the band “what are you hip to?” there’s a bit of waffle and then the words “we don’t like attaching ourselves to labels.” Before someone rips a bass groove out of their back pocket, plays the two filthiest guitar solos you’ve ever heard and utters the immortal line: “Johnny don’t care about the world, as long as he can do his girl” – and plays one of the songs of the year.
The best way to describe it, is this: “The Long Road To Ho” is like the music that would get made if a punk band was in a rancid transit van for two weeks with nothing but takeaway food, lots of booze, Orange Goblin albums and cheap porn mags.
It’s brilliant, but look, if they move in next door, put your house up for sale.
Rating 9/10
