Black Spring/These Men Are Liars Reviewed

Black Spring

Dagger Poems (Howard)

These Men Are Liars

This Album Title Reads Like a Fortune Cookie

Red 7 house soundman Josh Wardrip reunited not one but a pair of past projects at the venue's recent Jared Is a Grumpy Fuck Fest. Black Spring, known locally as Suburban Terror Project, 2000-2004, were nothing if not an accurate summation of their original moniker: a complex and complete aural assault. This 18-song compilation blisters with Wardrip's suicidal guitar time signatures combating Colin Fee's ballistic percussion, while Brian R. yells like a deranged and senile animal, howling under the influence of heat. Like J Mascis, Wardrip is equally exceptional behind the drum kit for These Men Are Liars, who broke up last year. The trio's final release sounds like an amalgam of early Touch and Go Records, thanks to Pete Brown's angular and spastic guitar structures, which point to P.W. Long and his Rapeman-inspired random fits of rage. The interwoven series of outtakes and soundscapes "The Bubble Has Neat Stuff" provides a vital break from the intensity of classics like "Sometimes Other People's Good Times Pay My Rent" and "If We All Break Everything Then We Might Feel Alright."

(Both)