The Black Black on Money Fire Records

I first caught The Black Black on a split with Low Fat Getting High. The split single is a sure sign that two bands are usually connected in more ways than just being musically related. In this case when Michael from Low Fat isn't playing guitar he's designing all kinds of art for The Black Black including the sleeve of this single. The Black Black have even gone so far as to rerecord the A-Side from that split and come at it with a new polish and space.

I definitely remember A-Side's "One Blunt Death Party" and those references of Chk chk chk or Les Savy Fav are still here, clearer and more defined than ever. This new attention to the track can't hurt this one in the slightest. They've gone and emphasized this undeniable catchiness and managed to open it up even more in the verse to allow for a few more lungfulls before drowning in art punk stabby layers. That bass line takes real pleasure in this scuzzy groove, the kit is heavily separated and a single jagged note on electric just sits there sawing away at the indie dance. When the chorus hits it seems to big bang out into high pitch distortion and impossibly fast closed high hat, keeping that same energy from the original, catching you off guard and unaware, except all the individual pieces have been sharpened to a razors edge.

"You're a Danger" on the B-Side gets into Chris' hard and heavy bass with a metronome snare beat. When you can get a simple opening that compelling with two underutilized instruments, you've got something. Like Death From Above the combination can be really killer and on this one they even capture a bit of that same energy. Big delayed chorus guitars bounce around and lift this up for Jonathan to whisper this demonic sermon. Looking for a bit more the bass takes over in complete control distilling the track down to just the backbeat coming off as more jittery and art punk than the A-Side.

Michael from Low Fat Getting High designed that sleeve and it's on black vinyl from Money Fire Records.

The Black Black / Low Fat Getting High self released split

Both The Black Black and Low Fat Getting High from Brooklyn happened to email me at almost exactly the same about their self released split that just came out the end of last month. The Black Black are a trio making a whole lot more complex noise and dance-y punk than they should physically be able to while Low Fat Getting High puts together the craziest band name and a polished fuzz late '90s guitar ROCK.

The Black Black's side with "One Blunt Death Party" is that kind of rawkus dance party that's reminding me of You Say Party, We Say Die or !!!, a hyper kinetic pace track with ultra low groove basslines and an inhuman high hat tempo. Jittery caffeinated guitar lines and vocals from Jonathan Daily keep this in a frantic singing-into-a-windtunnel place that really get started when Chris on bass is yelling about ten feet behind him. This is a dense party rock that's born of places like Les Savy Fav or Be Your Own Pet...I say 'party rock' but really it's about the undeniably catchy feel they immediately get to. Even though there's a sort of darker undertone to the lyric "I was there with you / at your moment of doubt and pain / can you guess my name?" but they must be after sucking you in before you really have a chance to realize you're singing along with some demented shit. This gets stripped down to the essential bare pieces about halfway through, to put this back together into straight ahead yelling at the top of their lungs with distorted solo's flying.

Flipping this over to Low Fat Getting High (somehow I thought "One Blunt Death Party" was their side, maybe they stole each others track titles...) who's track "Lacoste" is equally coming at this from a hyper tempo, but with a classically fuzzy muffed out guitar sound built out of the pieces of Dungen, The Big Sleep and Milk Music...or Gish I mean let's not mention the band that will not be named here, but Gish had this weird thin sounding quiet storm feel listening back. I don't know if it was mixed quiet, or normalized into submission, but the thick chunky guitar sounds all piled over each other are still a beautiful achievement and LFGH are hitting those same fuzzy peaks. Take the layers of MBV and inject it with pure speed, the Breaking Bad blue stuff. The abstract slightly echo vocal has a Screaming Trees baritone warble...or is that the melody construction? And that's only in it's slower moments when this is taking a breather, because it goes positively ape shit soloing over speed bass and cavernous pounding drums. If you accidentally played the densest Big Sleep at 45, you'd have some beginnings of this...they're taking this just into the next level...of course the whole thing starts to completely devolve right off the end leader tape in the reel to reel.
Wish I caught these guys out with Vulture Shit...dammit! When are you playing again?
Here's a new list:

Go pick this up from Black Black's bandcamp page or LFGH!