Review Summary: No Bullshit
From just the first few seconds of opener
You Gonna Get It, the Coachwhips make their mission statement clear: No Bull***. The track launches abruptly into motion, hurtling the listener into a breakneck, fuzzed-out riff. The guitar lets up and vocalist John Dwyer’s voice kicks in - just as noisy and
what?-inducing as everything else. Even this moment of relative calm is punctuated by a pounding drum beat and sporadic crashes of guitar. When the track kicks back into fast-as-*** mode after a mere thirty seconds, you can almost hear Dywer and co. sigh in relief. This is an album where traits like noisy and abrupt are features, not bugs. At its best,
Bangers Vs. ***ers is nothing short of exhilarating.
One of the best examples of Dwyer’s “trim the fat” approach is on standout
Evil Son, which sets off without a moment’s notice and features drums so loud and blown-out that they simply melt into a monolithic wall of sound. There’s not an ounce of filler on this thing: the intro lasts only four seconds before morphing into a jittery, fast-moving riff. You truly get the impression that the Coachwhips are holding as long as possible (nine seconds) before launching back into frenzied noise. Dwyer’s vocals are at once invigorating and indecipherable, barking through a five-thousand-year-old transistor radio a la Truckfighters and turning that effect up to the point where lyrics are totally out of the question. Again, this is a feature:
Evil Son’s breakneck pace and genuine catchiness make it one of Coachwhips’ best.
Where
Bangers Vs. ***ers shines for some, however, it may repel others. As mentioned previously, the mixing on this record is nothing short of monolithic. Guitar, drums, and vocals all meld together into a deafening, overpowering wall of sound. Additionally, once you’ve heard one track off
Bangers Vs. ***ers you’ve essentially heard them all. The no-bull*** approach of this record extends to the songwriting as well, and it’s easy to get the impression that most of this record was simply made up on the spot. The Coachwhips aren’t trying their hand at complex songwriting here, but rather instinctively pursuing the fastest, loudest, roughest sound possible. For some, this leads to a boring and repetitive record. And for some, the reliability of
Bangers Vs. ***ers means that every track is gonna be just as good.
