Zig Zags – “Scavenger/Monster Wizard” on Who Can You Trust? Records

One of my favorite memories is finding the 13th Floor Elevators self titled record and Trans Europe Express on vinyl to play in a huge abandoned house in the middle of the woods in upstate NY. There was an old shitty stereo hooked up to some massive thrift store speakers and we just fucking cranked them for hours. The way that synth or psych bounced off empty cinder block walls...you really hear things differently when an album like that is given serious room to roam. The Zig Zags single on Who Can You Trust? Records is another one I would have loved to throw into that mix. It's barely able to stretch out here at home with neighbors above and below. Like that Fuzz record from Ty and friends this makes the hair stand up on your neck while you feel like that guy in the memorex ad's.

The buzz and hum of cables before the violent crunch of A-Side's "Scavenger" is natures warning sign, like a rattlesnake, this is going to hurt. Their guitars have been compressed and punched into a fine grit on the very upper registers of scuzz, some of those early Sabbath tracks had a crunch like this. This is their heavy fist of absurdly metal rock taken to the next level...of course this is the label that brought you Hot Lunch and if there ever was a showcase to catch at sxsw.... even the drums are recorded like it was 1978. Backed off vocals in that metal tough layered sound but these guitars go from a power hungry speed to a mellow wavering groove with solo elements between the peaks and valleys like some kind of devil ultra blues. This is going almost evil, having made deals with darker forces to shake this thing loose, you can hear the whoosh of a dial twisted phaser distortion rising from the deep, these aren't normal effects. They play pedals MADE IN HELL!

"Monster Wizard" By now you already know what's in store with a title like that and it starts off slow with the fiddling and crackling of wires being adjusted again. You know in the middle of that heavy reverb and volume the tiniest short or bad connection in that guitar plug is going to break someone's eardrum. They keep this experimental tension before throwing it off the cliff. Impossibly epic they seem to be somehow plowing this entire sound through a wah that's slowly carrying this sound out of the bass deeps. The whole band comes in to sing this one out in a Natural Child style pausing to deliver the title against a squelching theremin. Just the heaviest drone classic rock metal. Zig Zags want to remind you to have a healthy respect for this sound. It has nothing to do with looks or headbangers ball, the bass on this track is shoveling the groove deeper into the crust of rock history. God damn they get into a groove and won't leave you alone. This is serious business. Not for beginners. Perfect for the holiday season.

On Who Can You Trust? Records, Germany !!! Or locally from the band's bandcamp page.

Hot Lunch on Who Can You Trust Records

How could I forget the heavy psych metal scream of Hot Lunch from their Alakazam single on Who Can You Trust Records? I didn't and neither did Who Can You Trust, answering their own question when it comes to this throwback perfectly assembled monsters of rock '70s sound. It leaves me still asking the question though, how does a German record label come across this heavy sound out of San Francisco and nail these stoners down for not just one single, but TWO!

A-Side's "Killer Smile" is laying the thick as brick foundation heavy sound, it's a freaking anvil falling out of the sky from the minute the track starts. You think you remember how hard this is, just how fast and loud they're bringing this rock, but you don't. Vocally this dude is balancing this gritty, pained yell with a belted melody. I love their freaking massive wah sound, no one has utilized that pedal like this in years! The tom passes through the left and right channel, across the whole stadium, that's exactly where this was recorded. It's the kind of sound destined for that space, to the point it would actually improve on this. The bigger the stacks, the more echo and delay off each successive speaker reaching back to the nosebleed seats...it would just add to this.
Hot Lunch is sweaty and hot, like Foghat and anything Sabbath, sweet old school classic rock, just swamps and warm thundery distortion. Half metal lyrics, or just blinded by moonshine:
I want to paint your lips red / with the blood of your foe
Completely sweet shit like that.
Screaming heavy, nuts pipes and this explodes into total metal, getting dangerous but then tinted with that hillbilly rock and stuff, speed up the blues riff with a tankful of distortion and you got this. Taking the long way around the arrangement to get back to this end chorus. Fantastic. Where's the rock school these guys are graduating from?

I love this insert card, I love their graphics, I love that they love 80's skate jams and analog tape and massive tube amps, these guys are back to the roots, all class.
"You're alright" is a cover from an old school skate movie, Skateboard Madness....and I mean early, like early '80s, by the time I got that gator gonzalez deck, skating had changed into something different from this thing. This is the perfect tough almost glam rock vocal, the rest of the band comes in on on backup harmony with lots of room for blown out solo's. Gravelly and rough, this is perfectly about 40 years past due, they reproduce this texture perfectly. I want to watch Thrasher or that Dogtown doc...although didn't those movies always have shitty 80's bands in them? LIke new wave bloops... they could have used more of this tough as leather southern skids sound, demin jackets and switchblades and less neon. Hot Lunch are here to rectify that for all time. Full length coming soon.

Black vinyl, big hole, because you better have an adapter god dammit, with killer graphics (that should be a t-shirt like the peralta screaming hand, just a no sleeve grey sweatshirt) on the cover from Who Can You Trust Records who is way ahead of the curve.

Released in an edition of 400 copies on black vinyl.

6.00 € + shipping
Order via: whocanyoutrustrec@googlemail.com

Lecherous Gaze on Who Can You Trust Records

Chris over at Who Can You Trust? Records let me know about this single from a four piece, Lecherous Gaze out of the west coast band hotbed that is known as Oakland. From what I gather, it can be a pretty sketchy neighborhood and that means cheap rent, giant spaces and neighbors who can't hear/don't care about the huge, stoner, classic rock that is blasting at all hours in that warehouse. That's exactly what Lecherous Gaze is putting together and they just passed through these parts at St. Vitus if that helps you decide to give this a listen.

A-Side kicks off with "Babagazo" which Zaryan Zaidi, their somewhat new lead singer is yelling over and over in a gravely deep growl. Try to google it, I'll be damned if I know what it means, but it's sure to be one of those lyrics that you're dumb friend will interpret as 'banging the zoo!'. It's some kind of insult or dude's name. This is full of deep classic rock riffage, plowing it's way out of that stack of amps. They're coming together with those rattling, sub bass frequencies, shaking the hell out of these chords. Zaryan has a little bit of that Rob Zombie vibe here. A kind of Big Daddy Roth biker gang sound full of leather and metal with the obligatory ridiculously technical solo that's letting you know there's heaps of skill here if you didn't already get that. A Sabbath and Dead Meadow mix at volume.
B-Sides "Scorpion" slowly headbangs in slower chords but it's destined to pickup into a speed line of metal guitar, in a Motorhead style with a cavernous echo on the vocal. Everything is balanced, the smashing percussion and tube-y distortions into a classic sounding ballsy rock, that doesn't sound like it was recorded yesterday...there's some kind of deliberate nice weathering across this.
"Feathered Fish" is a Sons of Adam cover, which one of the guys from Love was in, and that's another perfect reference to what these guys are up to and here they rev it up to a classic metal sounding place with the changes and original phrasing intact. Real snarly, bellowing feel to the vocal and they blow this out to epic proportions, like the rest of this one. Massive dark metal sounds from the West Coast with something of a layered psych feel which has to be in the water, or all that hydroponic.

Pick this up import only from Germany's Who Can You Trust Records.

Hot Lunch on Who Can You Trust Records

Got this mystery vinyl in from Who Can You Trust Records, it took me a while to notice that the band name, "Hot Lunch" was sitting right there in the green slime drool between those teeth...nice sleeve guys. Poking around the label site it seems like this German based label is nurturing the heavy psych pre-metal rock of the late '70s, with cassettes and singles from Hot Lunch.

"Alakazam" on the A-Side dives right into a screaming guitar, tight up front drums...right out of "Slow Ride" that sludgy classic beefy rock, with a bluesy almost metal melody over that slow death beat the drummer can work a thousand fills in between kick hits. The whole thing picks up into a faster sabbath quick riff sound and Eric Shea's high register raspy delivery is of course the perfect compliment to this ballsy rock, a similar Michael McKean style from the Tap...maybe even lyrically at points.

Everybody says that you need a wife / to drink the milk of life
I don't know why / it all began / I just came here for the party

A lot of control, but letting loose in that metal scream. They've nailed this sound in exactly the same way The Enthusiasts do...you hope there's some room out there to appreciate this sort of thing. They're so dead on in execution are they even going to be recognized for just recording this yesterday? So specific that it almost has to be some sort of parody or homage? No one would take the time to sincerely create this kind of impressive groove. All the classic rock stations out there just playing the same twenty songs over and over when there are bands like this! Oh radio, just curl up and die somewhere.

B-Sides "She wants More" shows off that crunchy riffage, literally you can hear the cable shorting out, the sound of the note just breaking through that Roger Dean dimension, taking it's agonizing time to bust out the unbelievable speed psych rock. Doing away with any of the haze, or extended jamming, packing that sort of loose, mustachioed, classic car sound right into two minutes. Completely macho, leather fringe vests...without any of the romanticism...pure classic rock that has no right to be done better than the original.

Check it out below