Review Summary: Guttermouth is witty, fast and raw just like a punk band should be, but their newest release sounded way to forced and didn't show the talent they truly posess which is a shame.
Guttermouth hails in from Huntington Beach, California. They are known for being offensive, both on their albums and at their shows and more recently, for being one of a few punk rock bands that is not openly left wing.
Biography
They were formed in 1989 in California when Mark Adkins left La Habra punk band Republic to join Eric "Derek" Davis's band Critical Noise. Critical Noise drummer Tim Baulch came up with the name Guttermouth for the newly merged members. After one year, Adkins and Davis relocated the band from La Habra, California to Huntington Beach, California, where new members Clint Weinrich, James T. Nunn, & Scott Sheldon joined Guttermouth.
A few years after their inception, Guttermouth signed a recording contract with Offspring lead singer Bryan Dexter Holland's Nitro Records, and began issuing albums at a breakneck pace, including 1996's Teri Yakimoto, 1997's Musical Monkey, and 1999's Gorgeous (album), the latter featuring a new drummer Ty Smith.
By the dawn of the new millennium, Guttermouth had switched to Epitaph Records, and issued further releases such as 2001's Covered With Ants, 2002's Gusto!, and 2004's Eat Your Face. The band left Epitaph Records in 2005 and signed to Volcom Entertainment and recently finished recording their next album with new drummer, Ryan Farrell. Shave the Planet was released on August 22, 2006.
Guttermouth - Shave the Planet
Tracklist:
1.Shave the Planet
2.Capitalizing From Plump Mistakes
3.My Chemical Imbalance
4.Flacidism
5.Primate Camp
6.The 23 Things That Rhyme With Darby Crash
7."Mark" the Cubby Chaser/Newport Sweater Fat
8.What Then
9.God, Steve McQueen "The Work Song"
10.Upside Down Space Cockroach
First of all, I have to say that I just recently discovered them and they have absoulutey hilarious songs. I got some older records by them which weren't too shabby and had pretty raw, funny and rough stuff on it. I decided to pick up their newest album "Shave the Planet" and here's my review for it.
Shave the Planet starts off with a little slower intro that rushs straight into the main song with pretty sweet fast drumming and great guitars in the background. My favorite line is probably the "And.. you in the ass while you're not looking" line which is sung great here. The song is relentless which displays the meaning of the song perfectly where they describe Americans as people who just don't give a crap to get to their goals and describe also the twisted society of today. Perfect opener.
Capitalizing From Plump Mistakes has a more relaxed sound to it with slower drumming and guitars. It has also their great usual vocals Mark Adkins which sound often very comical and satirical. He's really great at singing with a lot of great voices and clear singing. Great demonstrating here. Aside from that, there is pretty much nothing else that could have attracted me to the song. Overall it seemed kinda flat and unspired.
We enter the best song on the album already with
My Chemical Imbalance which describes the state of a drugged up Teenager. It has a brilliant knock on the song "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies (one of my favorite songs ever btw) where they totally turn the last famous face off with Mike and his parents upside down, where they let him talk like a kid completely on acid and crazed and his parents are rather nice and calm instead. Pretty damny funny to hear if you know the originial song. What I also liked was the catchy as hell refrain which just clicked with the rest and kept me interested for the rest of the album.
Flacidism has nothing else to show then a great refrain and cool guitar work. The rest of the song didn't seem to really connect with me at all and the toned down and slower ending didn't fit at all.
Primate Camp instead was absolutely ridiculous fun. It has a very cool feeling with crazy guitars in the refrain and a funny electronic voice yelling primate camp. Leadsinger Mark Adkins also shows off his absolutele awesome vocals again with a lot of comical vocals and great yelling in the fast middle part of the song. Definitely one of my faves here as it has also very funny lyricy again in my opinion.
The 23 Things That Rhyme With Darby Crash starts off with a cool bassline but quickly turns into a more unspirering punk mosh fest. It contains a lot of already heard stuff and gets repetive in seconds which is pretty much the death sentence to say about songs. The constant rhyming with "Crash" had some funny moments and was a nice add but nothing more.
"Mark" the Cubby Chaser/Newport Sweater Fat is almost exactly built like the previous song. The guitars are a bit better here but overall the song seemed so incredible forced, especially the supposedely "wild and angry" vocals. Add the dumb lyrics to it and you get just a really bad and horrible song.
What Then is more of a surprise at this stage of the album. I thought it would went right down the toilet with only 3 good songs but this song is exactly what they should try to do because it really delivers. Great vocal work and awesome guitars. It had a bit of a Bad Religion type feeling with some Sum 41 influences to it. Really good stuff. They really did a great effort here. Great mix here and overall a strong surprise.
God, Steve McQueen "The Work Song" has a really happy sounding guitar riff and overall feeling which was also rather new on this record. Just a different mood which I liked. I definitely enjoyed the refrain here. It's great to sing along with and has definitely a Dropkick Murpheys flair to it. Typically fun drinking song. Also the fact that it was the longest yet never boring song was great as well. They really should focus on those more detailed and longer songs overall. Their faster and supposed to be punkish songs seem way to forced to be taken seriously.
We enter the final song with
Upside Down Space Cockroach which didn't actually acomplish anything to make me listen to the whole thing again while it should have, because closing songs are supposed to have that goal. First off, the wild refrain didn't fit at all with the long, slower sung and sounding verses. All in all it seemed completely odd to listen to.
Positive
+ Short and relentless punk music as it should be
+ Great vocals
+ High creativity
Negative:
- 22 mins of length
- Sometimes innapropiate, for some maybe offensive content in the lyrics
- A lot of Fillers
- The overall sound sounds way too forced
- Repetive songs
Highlights:
- Shave the planet
- My Chemical Imbalance
- What Then
Final Rating:
2/5
Unless you're a die hard Guttermouth fan you better avoid buying the album and rather download the highlights of the song instead of wasting money on a rather short album. It has definitely some good moments and sometimes hilarious lyrics but I felt overall let down after I previously heard some really good older stuff by them.
