The Connoisseurs of Porn on Buzz Records

When you get a single with a band title like Connoisseurs of Porn it sets the bar pretty high for some sort of extreme insanity.
Then you take a look at the black and white cover of the single, photos of fences and barbed wire and a couple of weird bastards with bags on their heads with eye holes cut out of course. Oh is this Burial Chamber Trio you ask? No...but close.
The harsh shellac inspired chords on 'Peasant Terror' screech from the opening seconds on this - but wait, this isn't going to be one of those noise experiment in how long a listener is going to tolerate this. A bassline and drums work on under the skee-ee-eech. As a whole they have a dirty, raw sound, in the way that they probably recorded off hours in a dominatrix dungeon (which might actually work out for a band).
The guitar rides that line between pure feedback and the harmonics that are chords nicely with a half tin can and no effects at all vocals.
Even when I catch the lyric, 'My profession is teaching young ones...' it doesn't bother me, it wouldn't surprise me he was an elementary school teacher...and I'm sure he's better than most teachers out there.

'Chicken' has more of that insane guitar sound that the vocals try to match here, in anti-melody. This one has a little of that rumbling hardcore metal/rap sound, the off kilter rhythms, with each instrument desperately fighting for it's individuality, leaning on the ground shaking bursts of progressions and pauses.
The manic vocals get layered towards the end and this surprisingly brief track doesn't go overboard on that hammering sound.
I'd like to hear these guys keep pushing some of these ideas, it's headed towards something really unique, vocally they're already there. Half yelling, upper register releases following in no one's footsteps. The guitar matches the human weirdness while the band keeps it from getting too experimental, it's got those familiar pop structures and staying well on the fringes of traditional rock.

Housed in appropriately enough a brown paper inner sleeve, just like the really hardcore magazines from the days of old. I would love to see the subscriber list of Hustler magazine. I mean that group is truly living on the absolute fringes of society. The sleeve is a mix between pumpkinhead and saw imagery, made all the more scary by the lack of color.
Can I also just point out that for a band named Connoisseurs of Porn I wasn't expecting a nice handwritten, legible note with nothing but nice things to say about the blog. Is that almost a stereotype at this point? For every band that has a crazy persona it's equally inverse to their nice manners? Something like that... and what are these guys doing making music anyway? Being connoisseurs of Porn has to be a neverending job.

Get it from Buzz Records.

Featuring tracks 'Peasant Terror' and 'Chicken'7'
Recorded and Mixed by The Connoisseurs of Porn
Mastered By Jason Ward (Eliott Smith, Social Distortion)