XTRA VOMIT "Inebriation" (Otherwise Dead Records)

Awesome hardcore punk in just about every way. The riffs are catchy but not poppy. The vocal is strenuous and very human; totally youthful. I listen to this a lot in my car (but if you're on a bike you could use yr walkman, which is seeming like a MUCH more appealing situation these days). The production rules so fucking hard cos it's way raw and warm but not lo-fi, not losing any clarity and you can hear what's going on to the right degree I think; even the way the tracks are linked together is perfect; classic sample clips between tracks edited well and not akward or detracting from the music... I got this tape from the Loaded For Bear / Abrade tour in January 2007. I guess this guy Xtra Vomit, or Sock from Grand Rapids MI, was supposed to be with em or something and he couldn't make it, so they were getting his tapes out to people along the way. I didn't initially know what it was (just that it was probably punk or grind and not a noise tape); didn't know it was a solo act or that it was drum machine cos it's kind of like Mavis Concave's SX where the machine is pretty similar to a standard hxc punk drum style. There's a cover of the band Cress (in some ways similar, but not same, as Crass) which I didn't know before Cress actually used drum machines too. This tape definitely got me listening to a lot of Cress afterwards, which I'd really only heard briefly until then, and I can see a good amount of influence they might've had on the Xtra Vomit material in content and approach. There's a xerox zine/book that comes with the tape and it's got the words and collages and notes, totally fun but not at all just some childish bullshit trying to adhere to some stereotyped aesthetic. Xtra Vomit rules cos it's one dude in the midwest doing what he wants to do in the vein of classic hxc punk even in the 21st century. I think we're playing with him in Grand Rapids next month, so I'm pretty stoked. I hear there are other releases besides this "Inebriation" tape too... Robert Inhuman, June 2008