Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Mr. Phylzzz is a two-piece band dedicated to savaging both their listener’s eardrums and their psyche. To achieve the former goal, the band deploy sheets of scarifying feedback. To achieve the latter ambition, they imbue their songs with a remarkable amount of melody, ensuring they stick in your brain for far longer than the label of noise rock might initially suggest. Formed in 2015, the band caught the attention of the legendary Amphetamine Reptile label, who released their Penitent Curtis’ debut. For their sophomore effort, Cancel Culture Club, guitarist Clinton Jacob decided to go DIY, and the pandemic found him hunkered down in a 10 x 10 room, tracking guitars, drums and, at one point, King Buzzo, through whatever equipment he had to hand. Alongside the Melvins’ shock-haired main man, the band are also joined by Kevin Rutmanis (Cows, Melvins, Tomahawk) and Haze XXL, and all three guests neatly augment Phylzzz’s sound with their own unique brands of chaos. The result is a punishing yet accessible, nine-track album that evokes memories of digging through record store vinyl racks in search of the latest alt rock gem from the likes of The Jesus Lizard, Melvins or Mr Bungle.
Opening with the disturbingly sludgy title track, Cancel Culture Club takes Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band, filters it through The Melvins and The Dead Kennedys and spits it back out into the world in a welter of feedback and noise. It doesn’t even hit two minutes, which is as well, because the guitars are so laden with menace that any longer and you’d have mass psychosis breaking out among the band’s listeners. Next up, the surprisingly catchy Pretend Friends takes the massed guitars of Smashing Pumpkins and batters them into submission with layer after layer of idiosyncratic vocals. Similarly, You have One New Messages disguises a funky strut with a mahoosive, grinding riff, as if the band want to keep their audience-conquering ambitions a secret for at least one more album. The steel-plated In Memory Of A House Plant is one of the album’s toughest tracks, but even with a run time of two minutes, it finds a moment to pause for a bass solo, while the skronky guitar lines veer from deranged Hendrix lead, to Pixies-esque noise assault with gleeful abandon. Then there’s Mr Entertainer, a veritable epic at just over three-minutes, and the first opportunity for the listener to draw breath. A dynamic track, it grows organically from its subtle, doom-laden opening to become a deranged, Jesus-Lizard-esque monster, as the band (aided and abetted by Kind Buzzo) incorporate white hot sheets of metallic noise into the mix.
The second half of the album kicks off with the stuttering Jesus With A Shaved Head, a track made all the heavier by the squalls of feedback that shoot across its surface. Another song that hides funky rhythms and a mass of overdriven noise, Karl And His Big New Suit devolves, mid-way, into horror movie atmosphere, complete with creepy piano, just to keep listeners on their toes. The short, vivacious Daddy Wasn’t There recalls the Melvins at their most pop-tastic, and it would make a great single for all the grit the band shovel over its surface. It leaves the apostrophe-lacking I Took A Selfie At The Protest So Now Im A Good Person to round the album out in a storm of such ill-intentioned noise that it makes Endless Nameless sound like a ballad. A four-minute endurance test, it comes as something of a shock after the surprisingly accessible tracks that precede it, while the dizzying changes and disparate samples do much to recall Fantomas’ Suspended Animation album. It makes for a suitably disorienting finale to a gloriously disorienting album, and you’ll find your hand reaching for the play button before your brain realises quite what you’re doing.
As is probably now obvious, Cancel Culture Club is not for everyone. An impressive album that spends much of its run time treading that fine line between punishing noise and surprisingly accessible melodies, it is, nevertheless, predominantly for those who have a taste for the unconventional and the extreme. That said, while tracks like Jesus With A Shaved Head are certainly heavy, nods to The Beatles and the occasional funky digression, showcase a desire to engage the audience rather than alienate them, and the band pull off this delicate balancing act with aplomb. Addictive, innovative and performed with no small amount of skill, Cancel Culture Club is one of those rare and special records that feels genuinely alternative to anything else out there and, having had it on repeat for almost a week, I can testify to its endless replayability. Highly recommended. 9/10
