Thursday, June 24, 2010

Ape! - The Dirger

This is a primo slab of obnoxiousness from the Pennsylvania/Delaware region. Ape! are a noisy little trio that blast out dirty rock and roll that brings to mind filth lords like the Cosmic Psychos and Mudhoney as well as the spazzcore of Karp and Rye Coalition. The Dirger was recorded June, 2009 in West Chester, PA (home of the awesome Backwoods Payback) and released in November.

There are 9 blasts of fuzzed out scuzz in 35 minutes that will leave you feeling unclean. Louis Sarris plays guitar, distortion and wah wah pedal and does the lead screaming. Matt Gorzynski manhandles a dirty bass, Sean Connolly pounds the drums and they both do a bunch of yelling in the background. All the instruments are recorded well “in the red” but are not distorted beyond listenability.

Opener “Black Blood” starts off with a slow, druggy feel similar to early Monster Magnet before speeding up to a pummeling tempo. “Judas’ Dog” throbs to a Stooges “1969” beat. Actually, there’s a lot of 1st Stooges album influence, both direct and indirect. “Pretty In A Boring Way” comes across like an ancient blast of Australian Stooge worship from Lubricated Goat or (the aforementioned) Cosmic Psychos, with even a hint of early Nirvana.

“Dead On The Vine” is a slow pounder that sounds like the NoMeansNo song “The Tower” but with a heavier Black Sabbath feel. “Weekends In The Abyss” is a Blue Cheer-y instrumental with some wordless screaming that’s a lot of fun. And nice Slayer reference in the title. The lyrics to “The Ballad of Juan Montoya” are pretty inaudible. It’s hard to tell if this is about the former Torche guitarist or the NASCAR driver. Whoever it’s for should be honored by this burner with killer lead bass fills.

Ape! offers a nice mix of the loudest 1970’s style metal and the better parts of the 1990’s “grunge” bands. If you like it loud n raw, check these guys out. I have a feeling The Dirger is not available in many stores, so make contact via their myspace page. Vintage fuzz boxes are expensive and I’m looking forward to hearing more from these guys so send them your slimiest 7 dollar bills.

http://www.myspace.com/weareape

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