My Political Hotdog
I'm often conflicted with trying to figure out when things are my fault and when others are at fault as in, how bad are things for everyone out there right now? I want a hotdog right now and so I'm going to go get that, with some other stuff to go with it because at the very least, it's what I want. It's at that point when I judge the world by how far I have to go to get it.
Does no one else around here want hotdogs enough to cause a store in the area to carry them? What kind of a fucked up world do we live in that doesn't want hotdogs in their store? Maybe the neighborhood over there who gets hotdogs in their stores whenever they want, is a better neighborhood (world) to live in.
Then I see on the news that there are people in other parts of the world who can't even get regular food no matter how much they demand it. They were demanding it and become hollow and ghost like because their biology doesn't allow them to function without nutrition. Yeah, brains can't function to process information our personalities and characteristics that make us social being to fade.
Now I feel bad about my hotdog craving ways and think they could use hotdogs too and before I can imagine more realistic humanitarian ways to help, their government starts shooting them down in the streets. There's a breakdown in society and the news comes at me everyday and I can't keep my hotdogs down.
As a writer, I want to do what I can to make people aware of what I think would be a solution to that problem as well as addressing the problem themselves, and as a band Vile Display Of Humanity wants to do their part too.
It doesn't matter whether these guys are Chicago or Seattle scene because they're of the DIY scene, which spans out past borders and communities making it multi-social and their message clear, that shit is fucked up and someone needs to do something about it.
They're ArrghCore
This band isn't just another seed from Monsanto, they're a hard working bunch of DIY warriors with a message to the establishment, wake up and help people get what they deserve! my hotdogs here is the catalyst to help me make my point.
By the way, hotdogs are also a great way to make use of meat resources.
Maybe meat isn't a good analogy to hang this review on because often in the DIY scene there are rules against beer, cigarettes, drugs and maybe even meat.
Anyway, just how frustrated are they with the weight of the world? Pretty damn fucking frustrated. But before we dive right into the first track on the album, listen to tracks 6-9, each of them are a little over a minute long and each one gives you a variety of their guttural incendiary core sound.
[bandcamp width=350 height=350 album=3600436427 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 minimal=true]
The track Minimum wage cold cocks you right in the marrow. It's sharp and on point with the choral sections that will raise the McDonald's pay grade within 24 hours if they were outside of one ripping this song.
There are no comparisons to anything else out there I'm going to make for the simple reason that it's going to piss these guys off. Would hate to get caught up in that energy. But I will say that I don't get enough of Doug Mitchell's raspy throatal howl in the track You Can't Escape.
They will be glad to know that I can't escape the unrelenting assault of razor fury coming from that track. There's something quite captivating in that energy which prevents me from pulling away from it. Abrasive is what we're into and yes, with the wrong ear it's definitely that. But the dense melody of the bass let's songs like Shades Of Gray coast.
All of these songs make for coherent listening except for when Time To Die sound like they started throwing things together, which brings me to another point; when can they tell whether one part of a song goes to another song because some of these parts sound the same. It's that kind of attention to detail they're probably pretty good at where they hear something he rest of us don't.
What am I, Harry Dean Stanton asking Ridley Scott if he has enough money to make Alien?
But I'm into the wall of nonstop sound they create in their songs, like in bleeding out where their audio assault doesn't let up at all, which likely wouldn't be possible if they weren't young enough to do it. I'm already pretty exhausted just getting a quarter of the way into the album to know that this shit is hard work!
Either that or it's a symptom of my hotdog diet?
Pleasant Aural Assault
And I like it when they go through that period of one minute tracks where they convince me of absolute truth to never throw out an idea. Trust yourself when you feel you're done. Why keep going past the two minute mark? It's kind of like when I got fired recently, someone had to make a decision as to when they were done and trust it. Kind of like when Emilio Esteves decides to let go, right? [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkJhj1vhp4[/embed] When You See The Light is a sad little diddly about death maybe? I don't know. But it's the most haunting track on the entire album.
This album is like the kind of art you have to be conditioned to make or get into because, anyone who isn't used to accepting this kind of anger would be too frightened to understand where that person is coming from or not from the same anger.
Anyway, See What God Did is one of my favorite tracks on this whole thing. While there's a place for the short ones, its these almost ballads that reach close to the 3 minute mark where they shine for me. There's no way for me to tell who's on the guitar here, either Youngberg or Foster.
It's not hard to get the message. These guys aren't necessarily singing about having dinner with the family. There are some issues in the world which need to be addressed and address them they do.
These songs are bullets in that they can hit you from far away, even if you really don't know what they're singing about. Except for them they open up with an acoustic track Sunday Morning.
Now, I'm a bit of a news junkie but I'm also partisan. Wouldn't it be strange to find they're on the wrong side of things? But that's what makes the DIY scene so interesting is that the youth see things differently, not really pulled in by the rhetoric or whatever the climate might be in Washington or any where else.
Is it always about politics? Not really. Sometimes their anger is about certain truths we can't control like that hotdog thing I was talking about and the song titles are a pretty clear on what they're singing about.
By the way, could you imagine if these guys were pundits on something? Maybe that's something they should look into. Maybe they could come on my radio show to talk about that stuff, right?
Check out this and their first album on