Bongzilla
Gateway (Relapse) On their third Relapse release, this Madison, Wis.-based outfit tenders up eight sticky tracks of crunchy, loud, and oozy tunes that sound like a modern-day Black Sabbath running a Dutch coffee shop. As song titles make clear, this quartet is all about the sweet leaf: “Hashdealer,” “Greenthumb,” and “Keefmaster.” Bongzilla uses green goggles to see darkness as well as light. Their one-dimensional lyrics — delivered with a Morbid Angel-like guttural growl — are couched in loud, slow, and angry sounds. Bongzilla’s fuming over the country’s hypocritical marijuana laws, and they want other folks to be pissed off too. Plus, there’s nothing like a dash of evil to make your buzz more interesting. Still, this mean green team is up for a good time, as the sounds of lighters, water pipe bubbles, and deep draws in “666lb. Bongsession” attest. The title track has a nice crescendo meltdown, although here and elsewhere the vocal grinding delivers a monochromatic punch. Their trademark sludgy, fuzzy crunch, all excellently recorded, mixed and produced by Wendy Schneider — is achieved through alternate guitar tunings and delivered with volume to spare. No question some will find the (mostly pentatonic) riffing a little redundant, but that’s the point. Repetition forces the listener to recontextualize components, opens up a space to explore nuance, and ideally, induces a smoky trance. If this seems (ahem) high-minded, what did you expect from a band named Bongzilla? (Emo’s Annex, Friday, March 14, 9pm)
This article appears in February 28 • 2003.