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Captain Cleanoff: Symphonies of slackness

06/08/09 || Habakuk

At the time of writing I live next door to these guys, sort of. At least partly hailing from Collingwood, a Melbourne suburb, these guys succeed at further convincing me that when it comes to Metal, Australia is a doom, stoner and grind country. Even better, CONTINENT. Nothing wrong with that. To put this into perspective: When it comes to sausages for example, Australia is a shit, slime and eww-country. No offense mates, but seriously.

So, on their first full-length since the band formed in 1999, these local heroes are putting out some nice simplistic yet effective full-on grind in the vein of early Napalm Death, but with a production. The album title might suggest this is Carcass-worship, but apart from that I actually don’t see too many resemblances to Sanjiv and his friends, instead they quite often quote Barney’s mid-eighties bunch with the occasional 3-tone riff plus blast beat or opening riffs à la “Instinct of survival” that made “Scum” great. Although that is a pretty blatant move, they get away with it since the whole idea of recording in a studio sets this stuff apart from Birmingham, 1986 quite a bit, ass-kicking wise. The album has a pretty heavy guitar tone, a snare that’s just a tad too loud, and of course some low growl / high screech vocals that you’d expect if you’ve read this far through the review and that are actually quite good. It all sounds pretty tight, so while the songwriting might seem pretty punkish with songs clocking in around 1 minute 30, the final result doesn’t resemble the stuff you recorded on tape in ’89 and “distributed” with the filthy denim guys around the corner.

Straying away from their obvious influences, they mix in some crust elements and replace the ever-present politics by song titles in the “Hardcore fashion parade”, “Life metal”, “Wipe ya fetus” and “Frog dog” league. Funny (or not) song titles are one thing, but music and humor rarely mix well for me, so I salute them for not putting the lyrics into the booklet, but instead making it a little folding picture with lots of skulls, whatever that’s worth. And thank fuck, there are no stupid movie quotes or “funny” interludes at the beginning or throughout the songs, which ruin at least every second grind album. None at all. Not even on “Intro”. The Captains just keep things flowing nicely instead of trying to make the songs on the album artificially memorable. Good move. As a result of course, you won’t be able to tell the songs apart after the album’s through – sorry for that. Except for one, which is the title track and skipped by me since it contains the album’s only and awful lead guitar section. And there are no hooklines that ‘ll enable you rock the road with windows down and aviator glasses firmly in place. So always keep “Breaking the law” handy when listening to this – By switching back and forth you’ll be a totally defiant hard-ass and still able to impress the fancy ladies. You don’t know what it’s-a like…!

Information
Released: 2008
Label: Spikefarm
Website: Captain Cleanoff MySpace
Band
Ben Parson: vocals
Adrian Medhurst: guitars
Arnand White: bass
Rohan: guitar
Murray: drums

Tracklist
01. Intro
02. Your fate
03. Gore grind thrush attack
04. Stuck in a rut
05. 3234
06. Wipe ya fetus
07. Blockhole
08. Cold showa
09. Mr Serious
10. Hardcore fashion parade
11. Baby got gunt
12. Tow da line
13. Wretch
14. Just another breakdown
15. Symphonies of slackness
16. Here tis
17. Frog dog
18. Life metal
19. Toxic mind
20. Wasting time and money
21. Wizard’s sleeve

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