Seattle’s Heavy Petting has the kind of band name that
makes you go “Hmm…,” like that C + C Music Factory song. (Fun fact: C + C Music
Factory had a gig at a laser tag/arcade I was playing minigolf at, totally
unbeknownst to me when I got there. This was at least a decade and a half after
they’d achieved one-hit-wonder status.) Regardless of whether or not you can
get the cover of that one NOFX album out of your head after starting in on this
won’t matter. There’s very little the trio of Evan Anderson, Derek Blackstone, and
Evan Easthope have to do with either heavy petting or pop punk, or, uh,
late-1980s dance music. Unless you want to emphasize the “heavy.” They kind of
have a “heavy” vibe.
What Heavy Petting do quite well is the ponderous
post-rock thing, where the trio snake down mathy instrumental passages that
pummel without overwhelming with volume. Adult
Program is a rad EP that recalls some of my favorite netlabel releases back
in the mid-aughts (see especially Lost Children’s run of post-rock/math-rock
EPs). The guitar, while distorted on many occasions, does not bludgeon with
metal intensity, so this isn’t some stoner rock knockoff. And the “post-rockness”
of Adult Program picks up the pace
periodically as well, so there’s some definite variation. This is just one of
those good-old guitar/bass/drums trio EPs where the interplay works, the songs
don’t overstay their welcome, and enjoyment is almost a certainty.
https://heavy-petting.bandcamp.com/
https://deaddefinition.bandcamp.com/
--Ryan
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