SWITCHBLADE JESUS/FUZZ EVIL
“SECOND COMING OF HEAVY: CHAPTER 7”
Album Review by Dark Juan
9/10

Switchblade Jesus are:

Eric Calvert – Guitar/Vocals
Chris Black – Bass
Jon Elizondo – Drums

Fuzz Evil are:

Wayne Rudell – Vocals/Guitar
Joseph Rudell – Vocals/Bass
Orgo Martinez – Drums

Heads up, ladies, gentlemen, and people of no specific (don’t want to presuppose now, do we?) gender! This is a fuzzed out, tremendously groovy grudge match between the finest supergroovers from Texas, the mighty, the Lone Star State bruisers Switchblade Jesus and Arizona’s ultimate psychedelic warriors, the incredible technicolour Fuzz Evil. These two stoner psychos go head to head on Ripple Music’s Second Coming Of Heavy Chapter VII. I expect a dirty fight, phasers, fuzz and wah are permitted and no-one leaves the ring until the visibility decreases due to the massive clouds of marijuana smoke…. Ready? Let us begin….

First up, Switchblade Jesus. First track Snakes And Lions creeps up on you, jangly and soft to start with before launching itself at your throat with ferocity. Or rather, languidly making an attempt to catch you and slapping you weakly with its paw. Because it is far too stoned to care about your misdemeanours. It’s a good solid piece of fuzz drenched desert rock and roll, not innovative but by god it is satisfying to listen to. As are all of their tracks. Satisfyingly heavy, groovy as all get out and sounding like a night ride through the desert on a Harley with your girl behind you, pressed up against you and you can feel her heart through her t-shirt on your back. It’s uncompromising, but it’s fun. It’s the dangerous kind of fun you have when slightly drunk and you decide to shoot those bottles with the high powered rifle you have in the shed. It’s brutal with a pleasant furry edge. Excellent stuff. Fuzz Evil are going to have to work hard to top this…. And the riffs, the huge, HUGE riffs!  Eric Calvert’s voice is a gravelly, deep throated bong monster (reminds me a bit of Kirk Windstein from Crowbar….) entirely appropriate for the music on offer and makes for lo-fi brilliance.

OK, Fuzz Evil then – equally good but in a different way. I find them slightly more melodic. They are a chugging great metal fuzzbeast of a band with riffs of IMMENSE proportions but a cleaner vocal style. Think more along the lines of Dave Wyndorf crossed with Andrew Stockdale and you are close to the mark. This is good. I dig every song of theirs on this record but special mention has to go out to Flighty Woman. Everything that is good and just and righteous about stoner/doom/lo-fi/psychedelic rock is distilled into this song. Riffs like granite mountains, vocals soaring and just a long, blissful drawn out jam at the end to smooth your comedown. Magnificent. Also, Fuzz Evil edge it on low end too. The bass on their song is perilously close to the brown frequency, the way it shakes your guts. There’s low end and there’s the bassist from Fuzz Evil, who apparently has stolen his bass sound from the fourth circle of hell. Lucifer wants it back, you thieving bastard!

Ok, let’s summarize for you good people out there in MetalgodsTV.com land who actually read my drivel. This is an almighty groove machine of an album well worth your pennies, zlotys, yuan, euros or whatever your currency is. Make stoners happy! Buy this record! I’m going to put exclamation marks at the end of every sentence! Simply because I can! This record as a whole sounds like a desert speakeasy where everyone has rolled up in their rusting pick up trucks and the dust is like a living thing crawling across everything. It’s the blackest of star spattered night and the low buzz of horrifically stoned conversation about how beautiful everything is. It’s the rattle of an aggrieved snake as a young man steps near to it with his girl for a make out session in his drop top, playing Bongzilla on the stereo and watching the moon cross the sky.

A damned fine record.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has been at the bong again and gives this album a cosmically stoned 9/10. That’s enough missing blood to be of concern to supranational agencies who were stockpiling it for overseas aid.

Tracklist:

Snakes And Lions
Wet Lungs
Heavy Is The Mountain
Better Off Alone
Graves And Cupids
If You Know
Flighty Woman

https://www.facebook.com/SwitchbladeJesus
https://www.facebook.com/FuzzEvil/

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