What made grunge undeniably great was the fusion of metal and classic rock with a blurry punk speed. I’m trying not to compare this single to that late ‘90s sound which debatably made Seattle the center of the universe for a few years but these are exactly the elements Low Fat Getting High is working with on their self released EP single that came out Thursday July 18th at their Shea Stadium release show. Their sound is as heavy as the early sludge of The Melvins combined with something of a dense, layered sound found in My Bloody Valentine played at hardcore speed with intense attention to detail.
A-Side’s "Better Better Worse" starts with a high pitch feedback ghostly fade in under Kaleen Reading’s powerful drumming, banging out heavy rhythms. She’s propelling the constant state of speed of their sound across this record, forcing Michael P Sincavage’s guitar into narrow speedways. He’s taming the chaotic squealing into a thick crunch and wasting no time on this three-track side, they run into the chorus “THROW IT AWAY!” as if they’re attempting to cast off some of those historic burdens. Michael’s vocal has a doubled Dave Grohl feel and they elevate this fuzzy, compressed sound into higher and higher peaks. Kaleen’s drumming is a call to abandon subtlety and delicate changes in favor of a constant state of impressive pounding. The guitar and bass are too busy working out an impenetrable rhythmic ‘chunk’ than to be concerned with individual melody. The tracks on this side run right into each other without a pause and "Childhood friends" up next has a beefy Mudhoney sound. Michael’s snarly melody and twisting solo’s are always working underneath in recorded perfection. Artie Tan on bass matches this hardcore density and Kaleen’s ferocious drumming. They've captured their live energy on this EP better than their previous single [link]. Each piece of their rock trinity is perfectly contained with all their different textures intact.
Their precise sound continues in bursts of fuzzy distortion and wild sustained bends reminiscent of Gish which is as much psych as your going to get in this jagged, muscly assault. There’s an underlying kind of austerity in the content, I don't think the friendship Michael is referring too ended so great - the ties that bind early can end up a mystery as to why they ever existed in the first place.
"The Claw" opens with a frenetic hard burst of back and forth kick and snare at incredible speed and this is when Low Fat Getting High gets dangerous because they’re capable of plowing forward on this level for a sustained period of time. It’s a thick, double melody guitar, always plotting for a heavier delivery.
B-Side’s "My Hate" uses a great bass line from Artie Tan while Kaleen on drums pounds out her clockwork bash. Their distortion… the way these elements add up to a sloshing, banging around sound. When they create a bendy, sliding riff they ride it through the various minor key changes, like the most rambunctious sludgy moments of Bleach. The screaming vocal about hate drops out for another movement, a gritty, blues solo of a garage sound, but the heavy crunch is what keeps coming back, slowing down to epic slowness, the sound of a massive machine is winding down. Their rumbling is ominous, as if there's never been earth shaking like this. The three of them dig deeper into bedrock, mining seriously dangerous depths. “My Hate” has an incredible driving riff and they’re always pushing themselves right into the red in order to keep up this tsunami of rhythm and speed. It’s hard to follow a clean, precisely constructed roar. The only warble is a synced harmony from ungrounded cable, the high hum of amps at full power. Michael goes a little bit blues on top of this with impressively shaped distortions which eventually start to come slowly to a grinding halt, which must be hard for them, fighting their instincts in order to keep the end of this constantly slowing down. They don't want to do it; it’s against their nature and just creates further tension, can they get any fast...any louder?
This is an impressive second single that shouldn’t be this concise and polished, they’re only impossibly raising the bar for themselves early in the game. But they can’t possibly be holding anything back and it’s the only thing they know how to do; plow ahead at the very limits of their sound. Taking full advantage of the opportunity, putting everything on the line for this one.
Pick this up at the moment from Money Fire Records.
