It takes 30 seconds for Prayer Group to have me on the edge of my seat, heart pounding as the lysergic bass of Landlord college (played, admittedly, at sanity-threatening volumes) attempts to rupture my spleen. The unlikely lovechild of a union betwixt Lee Ranaldo, Jello Biafra and the Melvins, Prayer Group epitomises everything that is great about the US underground, the rampant, feral noise the band conjure up joyously savage in its delivery. It’s a thrilling, wide-eyed, white-knuckle outpouring that, even in these jaded times, blasts through the cobwebs of mediocrity and reminds you that there are artists out there still willing to teeter on the brink in order to deliver art as opposed to product.
A four-track EP, Eudean opens with the aforementioned landlord college, a track of such unutterable brilliance that I could listen to it on repeat for days if such an act wouldn’t risk the threat of legal action from the neighbours. A churning, hypnotic cauldron of noise that pits the nimble guitar figures of Guy Picciotto against the seething, distorted bass of Matt Lukin; what sets the track apart are the deftly split vocals – laconic, spoken word passages offset by the tortured howls of a drunken street poet – as if the piece is being delivered by a schizophrenic; rational the one moment, possessed of great violence the next. For four stunning, mind-blowing minutes the band rage and burn, and then it’s over and you want to go back to the beginning and experience it all over again.
The band, however, are already driving forward with the serrated riffs and stuttering solos of code black a noise-punk whiteout that sees barely coherent guitar lines physically slamming into Anthony’s monstrous percussive assault with the resulting shockwaves sending the listener spiralling into a netherworld of splintered fragments and half-formed thoughts. Coming out the other side, the band have the taut groove of acid mountain waiting in the wings to whisk the listener off in yet another direction as the Jesus Lizard meet the Dead Kennedys with predictably excellent results. The track, at just over five-minutes in length, is the album’s longest piece and the band use the expanded run-time to end in a white-noise freak-out that presages great things for their live show. Anthony’s devastating drums usher in Ethan’s cruelly-distorted bass on the other and even (whisper it) enough of a touch of melody to keep the song memorable amidst all the overloaded amps and shattered speaker cones that surround it. It brings this all-too-short EP to a close and leaves the listener in a quandary as to whether they should hunt down the band’s previous two releases (you really should), or simply play the thing over and over again until the cassette player overheats and you find yourself stuck with a biro, trying to reel the damn tape back into its plastic shell once more.
UK Bandcamp:
Everything about Eudean is just awesome. Whilst listening I found myself jabbering like Beavis over a particular good video (yeah, it’s a good thing no-one’s here today) and now the thing is over I just want to put it on again and again… it’s a an adrenal-gland-stimulating, ear-raping, sinus-clearing (yep – this band are even good for the health) white noise extravaganza that harks back to the exhilarating, boundary-defying days of the early 90s, when bands like Sonic Youth were taking on the mainstream and winning. What else? You want a score? Fine – 12/10.
US Bandcamp:
The band are playing the following shows in support of the EP. Please see here for more details.
13thJuly: Richmond, VA@ Wonderland w/ Florida Man
24thJuly: TBC
25thJuly: Raleigh, NC@ The Bunker
26thJuly: Charleston, SC@ Burns Alley w/ Florida Man
27thJuly: Athens, GA@ CaledoniaLounge w/ Vincas
28thJuly: Richmond, VA@ Bandito’s w/Twin Drugs+ Slump
