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* CRUNT

This is an all-star combo of sorts, featuring Stuart Gray of Lubricated Goat on guitar, Kat Bjelland of Babes In Toyland on bass, Russel Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on drums (everybody contributes vocals). Crunt creates music for infuriated cavepeople, and hopefully their debut is not just a one-off moonlighting project. Delicately crafted lyrics like 'Fat swine in the slammer/Tongue stuck in the door/No place for a squealer/Fresh blood on the floor/Rub harder and harder/ Make it shine evermore/Suck fat from the stomach/Sex dog on the floor' meet lean, muscular, spiky riffs jetting down bumpy detours of grooves. Bjelland belts on only one cut, 'Unglued', while Simins and Gray trade off hurling raspy imprecations on tracks like 'Swine', 'Sexy', 'Punishment' and 'Spam'. It's loud, it's tight and crunchy, it's chock-full of adrenaline, it's kinda crazy - what more could you want? Apparently, there is more life to Crunt than this one disc, as Crunt plans on touring (no doubt they'll open with the rockin' 'Theme From Crunt'). I'm not a big fan of any of these artists individual groups, but Crunt - played at appropriately excruciating volume levels - shakes the walls of my cave nicely.
(Trance Syndicate, Box 49771, Austin, TX 78765)
- Randolph Heard