Ding dong fucking with your head. True story: I woke up in a cold sweat last night – okay not so true, I was already lying awake courtesy my 15-month old son’s sprouting molars unable to get back to sleep and it was about 4 am this morning not last night – when I had the horrific realization that this pure godhead of a record DID NOT YET LIVE FOREVER IN THE FOREST!
What an extreme overbite you have. I mean extreme oversight have I committed. Or lack thereof. Lack thereof sleep anyway. This keeps me awake through the day. 8 songs 30 minutes. 1997 vintage. I love every fucking song on this record infinitely equally. Doubtless one of my all time top five favorite records in the past 20 years. EASILY. Like Metamucil. This stuff has FLOW.
Fist. I mean First, KARP stands for KILL ALL REDNECK PRICKS! We could stop right there, no? I need not say more but I will. Next. God Bless these Gentlemen. How ever fucking refreshing it is that THE HEAVY is finally employed by street poets, that it is RESURRECTED from the clutches of doltish knuckle–dragging Neanderthal yahoos who stubbornly insist that THE HEAVY is a franchise for patriotic misogyny and homophobic NRA numbskulls.
Yay. I mean, YEA, my brothers and sisters, KARP has rendered THE LOUD for GOOD. Obv. There are caveats. This LP must be engaged with liberal volume and hypnotic body rocking. It is most therapeutic in this mode.
Look: In layman’s terms. These guys are Pure Genius (they know it too. They even have a track titled “J is for Genius”). They are PHAT. They are heavy. They are simple. They are groovy. I cry everytime I recall how I never got a chance to see them live. I knew young folks back in Santa Cruz who swore by KARP’s basement shows. Back in the 90’s, they would roll up and down the Left Coast, playing any and everywhere, setting up their rock to cast the demons out, playing harder and louder and HEAVIER than anyone in the Pacific Coast Rim radius (and that includes you, pouty Japanese Noise Boys).
Purrfect opener “Bacon Industry” quotes the great Joe Walsh (listen for “my maserati does 185”). The refrain is “I’ve got no pulse.” Perhaps my favorite of the equally infinite favorites (i.e., if I could only play one song of this record before I died) would be the second track “Forget the Minions” (“they’re on their own”). Breathtaking. I doubt you can make them out on your own, but the lyrics (which come with the CD!) are superb stream of subconscious mantras.
PS: listen close for the hidden Slayer parody that closes out this SELF TITLED LP. Priceless.
Allmusic says: "Dark," "ultra-cynical" and "heavy" have been the some of the adjectives used to describe the Tumwater, WA's Karp. First calling attention to themselves in '94 with their first full-length Mustache Wild on K Records, Karp laid it on thick by flaunting their fascination with the Melvins and Black Sabbath. The following year Suplex was released with the same tone and mood of their debut, but this time with more of a humorous bite in a sarcastic, middle-finger-in-the-air attitude. Whether it's dressing up as wrestlers or songs that rip on Hollywood, math and even pay tribute to 70's roller derby, it's evident that this three piece find it hard to take themselves very seriously. Following a tour of Japan, many singles on various labels and a split with New Jersey's Rye Coalition, (Karp clocking in a twelve-minute ditty called "Keep your Hands Off My Cake") their Self Titled LP was released in late 1997. Continuing on with their comic book-like nihilism and guitars kept down to A chord, it would be Karp's most acclaimed, but unfortunately, their final release.
Karp bowed out of existence with this monster of a record, arguably the best influence Iron Maiden has ever had on any other band ever (the worthy-of-worship song titles are all the band's own, though). From the balls-out opening riff on the brilliant "Bacon Industry" to the closing, throat-shredding mania on "J Is for Genius," this quite literally self-titled record simply does not and will not let up. The vocals sounds even more raw and raunchy than before — this is hard rock that lives up to the name — and the temptation to pump one's fist is almost impossible to resist. The trio's ear for sassy, snarling, hip-grinding hooks gives everything a sandpaper-rough edge to hang onto, explaining why the stomp and sway of "Forget the Minions" and "Octoberfleshed" are so damn worthy of being cranked up all the way to 11.
What an extreme overbite you have. I mean extreme oversight have I committed. Or lack thereof. Lack thereof sleep anyway. This keeps me awake through the day. 8 songs 30 minutes. 1997 vintage. I love every fucking song on this record infinitely equally. Doubtless one of my all time top five favorite records in the past 20 years. EASILY. Like Metamucil. This stuff has FLOW.
Fist. I mean First, KARP stands for KILL ALL REDNECK PRICKS! We could stop right there, no? I need not say more but I will. Next. God Bless these Gentlemen. How ever fucking refreshing it is that THE HEAVY is finally employed by street poets, that it is RESURRECTED from the clutches of doltish knuckle–dragging Neanderthal yahoos who stubbornly insist that THE HEAVY is a franchise for patriotic misogyny and homophobic NRA numbskulls.
Yay. I mean, YEA, my brothers and sisters, KARP has rendered THE LOUD for GOOD. Obv. There are caveats. This LP must be engaged with liberal volume and hypnotic body rocking. It is most therapeutic in this mode.
Look: In layman’s terms. These guys are Pure Genius (they know it too. They even have a track titled “J is for Genius”). They are PHAT. They are heavy. They are simple. They are groovy. I cry everytime I recall how I never got a chance to see them live. I knew young folks back in Santa Cruz who swore by KARP’s basement shows. Back in the 90’s, they would roll up and down the Left Coast, playing any and everywhere, setting up their rock to cast the demons out, playing harder and louder and HEAVIER than anyone in the Pacific Coast Rim radius (and that includes you, pouty Japanese Noise Boys).
Purrfect opener “Bacon Industry” quotes the great Joe Walsh (listen for “my maserati does 185”). The refrain is “I’ve got no pulse.” Perhaps my favorite of the equally infinite favorites (i.e., if I could only play one song of this record before I died) would be the second track “Forget the Minions” (“they’re on their own”). Breathtaking. I doubt you can make them out on your own, but the lyrics (which come with the CD!) are superb stream of subconscious mantras.
PS: listen close for the hidden Slayer parody that closes out this SELF TITLED LP. Priceless.
Allmusic says: "Dark," "ultra-cynical" and "heavy" have been the some of the adjectives used to describe the Tumwater, WA's Karp. First calling attention to themselves in '94 with their first full-length Mustache Wild on K Records, Karp laid it on thick by flaunting their fascination with the Melvins and Black Sabbath. The following year Suplex was released with the same tone and mood of their debut, but this time with more of a humorous bite in a sarcastic, middle-finger-in-the-air attitude. Whether it's dressing up as wrestlers or songs that rip on Hollywood, math and even pay tribute to 70's roller derby, it's evident that this three piece find it hard to take themselves very seriously. Following a tour of Japan, many singles on various labels and a split with New Jersey's Rye Coalition, (Karp clocking in a twelve-minute ditty called "Keep your Hands Off My Cake") their Self Titled LP was released in late 1997. Continuing on with their comic book-like nihilism and guitars kept down to A chord, it would be Karp's most acclaimed, but unfortunately, their final release.
Karp bowed out of existence with this monster of a record, arguably the best influence Iron Maiden has ever had on any other band ever (the worthy-of-worship song titles are all the band's own, though). From the balls-out opening riff on the brilliant "Bacon Industry" to the closing, throat-shredding mania on "J Is for Genius," this quite literally self-titled record simply does not and will not let up. The vocals sounds even more raw and raunchy than before — this is hard rock that lives up to the name — and the temptation to pump one's fist is almost impossible to resist. The trio's ear for sassy, snarling, hip-grinding hooks gives everything a sandpaper-rough edge to hang onto, explaining why the stomp and sway of "Forget the Minions" and "Octoberfleshed" are so damn worthy of being cranked up all the way to 11.
2 comments:
You turned me onto this masterpiece but when, then and I still want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant. It is so solid. Like a golden egg.
p.sssss - i love that idea: The Loud For Good.
Yeah why do douchebags have a corner on the V! market?
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