FUNEROT

When metal bands from the Pacific Northwest hook up with New York's Razorback Records, good things usually happen. It usually involves a musical product consisting of a lethal and catchy combination of gore, thrash, death, and grind. The key difference with Shoreline, Washington's FUNEROT is that theirs is almost exclusively an old school thrash/crossover approach, although the fun factor and twisted science fiction/horror lyrics remain. I prefer the band's description of its music: "post-apocalyptic, nuclear waste drenched thrash." It makes sense. FUNEROT should easily appeal to fans of old-timers like D.R.I. and newcomers like MUNICIPAL WASTE.

Speed-picking and jagged riffs poke out eyes and break noses, gnarly solos lunge at you, a drumming style that is somehow tight and loose at once batters and clatters, and amplified bass licks buzz rumble beneath. Add in tried-and-true, calamitous crossover vocals and you end up with one hell-raising good time. Aside from the surprisingly fitting acoustic instrumental "Radioactivation" (somehow it works in the middle of all this carnage) and a riff-heavy and motoring outro called "Aftermath", the approach is frenetic and nutty as hell. In other words, it is just as you would expect from a band that understands this style of old-school thrash goodness. And while you are trashing your living room and annoying the shit out of the neighbors to this musical equivalent of a bull in a china shop, remember to crack a wide, shit-eating grin. How could you not when reading the lyrics to atrocities like "Death by Draino" (i.e. "Perfect poison / Sweet as anti-freeze / Roto-Rooter for your soul") and "1-900-DTH-Line" ("Looking for a corpse to fuck?")?

FUNEROT may not knock the legends from their lofty pedestals, but the quartet can certainly hold its own. The mutant music of "Invasion from the Death Dimension" is not something that is learned. It is conjured from the soul and shot out through the eye sockets.