Review Summary: More than just a novelty record.
Three decades ago, Alvin & The Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian released two albums under his Chipmunk brand: Chipmunk Punk and Chipmunks & Chipettes: Born 2 Rock, two novelty records covering the most popular new wave and pop songs (despite being labeled as playing punk and rock, none of them have punk or rock). Both records are nothing more than what you'd expect from the Chipmunks brand, and they both promptly faded into laughable novelty obscurity as did the rest of Bagdasarian's musical library. Years later, however, Brian Borcherdt of Canadian electronica band Holy Fück uploaded several of Ross Bagdasarian's tracks being played on a 16-speed record player. This resulted in the squeaky, kid-friendly chipmunk vocals being lowered to their original human octaves and the normal-speed guitars and synths being slowed down to a sludgy, chunky mess of distortion, depression, and chaos. In just a few months, Chipmunkson16speed have garnered up a massive following, with over a million listens on their Soundcloud page and thousands of likes on Facebook. I'm sure many people believed this to be nothing more than a gimmick, a fad, a meme, or just more novelty, and perhaps it is just that, but Sludgefest comes up through all of that and stands alone as a truly listenable and interesting record.
Sludgefest can most aptly be considered "sludge pop" or "sludge rock", though I think "stoner pop" can also be applicable. A wide array of genres are covered on this eight-song piece, most notably being sludge metal, new wave, psychedelic, stoner rock, vaporwave, dream pop, and rock, all of it slow and chilled to the bone. The sludgiest and the metalyist of the tracks come from "My Sharona", "Refugee", and "Call Me", with thundering guitars and booming bass, sounding akin to something like Black Sabbath, and "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" or "Hanging On" with Phil Collins-esque synth trumpets and keyboards. Although Bagdasarian himself is credited as supplying all of the original voices for the 'munks, most of the songs have vocals that sound completely opposite from the other, like "Diamond Dolls"'s deep, rumbling baritones (imagine Chubby Checker singing a lullaby), and "Hanging On" which appears to have multiple singers, including a raspy grunge/hard rock vocalist and a possibly-female soprano vocalist. Unless Bagdasarian was better at manipulating his vocal chords than we thought, I doubt we will ever really know who supplied all the vocals on this record. Regardless of who truly did the singing, they must be praised. Who knew that years later, their slightly off-key singing ability would be so highly praised? On all songs, the vocals harmonize to create a soothing, calming, yet haunting, depressing melody of chaos, most evident in "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" which sounds likes a couple has died on their wedding night and they are dancing and kissing in the afterlife. "Hanging On" slowed down sounds like someone's final moments of life succumbing to their suicidal thoughts, and the "whoa-whoa-whoaaa's" is one of the most depressing things I've heard in music for a long time.
Whether I can call this one of the best albums of the year is unsure, saying it's less of an album and more of an experimental "hey, look at this, guys" bedroom project bastard child from Holy ***'s Brian Borcherdt and Graham "Wadey" Wilson, but I will say it is one of the most interesting albums of the year, as well as one of the catchiest and original albums of the year, despite not a single song being an original piece. This is the kind of thing that'll inspire a modern day Kurt Cobain to revolutionize the music industry; just wait for skinny-jeaned thick-rimmed hipster youths to start wearing Chipmunkson16speed shirts, and for the ukulele to be dropped and replaced with the 16-speed player. It'll be magical, I think. A petition on change.org is asking for an official Sludgefest CD/vinyl release, and over 35,000 people have signed. Make that 35,001.
