TRASH DOG “Garbage Eater” (Virus)

Hideous new Iowa City “mongrol core” project from Jeff Witscher, Daren Ho, and Ryan Garbage that sounds like the logical next step in Jeff’s vision/masterplan of playing in an actual hardcore band that gets babes after their shows rather than just scum crew alley loitering. Of course, it’s not a total departure or anything, the songs are still piles of deafening filth but in TD everybody actually bothers playing their instrument (instead of just kicking it against the concrete in a frenzy of hate, Deep Jew-style). “Garbage Eater” has a whole lot of recognizable riffs with legitimate chords, real drum beats, vocals with lyrics (rather than just Alex’s vile primal screaming). Being a Witscher production, it’s still recorded like complete shit with feedback bleeding out of every sweaty pore, but where DJ were so violently punk they broke through the wall into harsh noise, Trash Dog is more of a middle ground rager’s aesthetic. Basically it’s a gross punk band playing gross punk songs with titles like “Punks and Cops” and “Pig Leash.” It’s only a C12 so it’s over pretty quick, but the J-card has plenty of hilarious Witscher slogans like “dreaming of far away/swamps with pizza and/candy” and “dedicated to deviant scrum.” Totally worth grabbing, and there’ll be more from this posse soon I’m sure.