OK, I haven't even heard a note yet from the mighty Crushpile and I have beef
with them. I popped in their latest self-titled / self-released disc into my
computer drive and it got stuck. I had to shut down my computer 10 times
before it popped out. Not happy.
First track of the 5-song disc is called "Owning Up". It's got a nice crunchy
recording, not too blown out, not too polished, it's clear and chunky but
definitely has a demo feel because its pretty thin. I think your boy on
vocals is trying to sound like Serj from System Of A Down. The bass is punchy
and I like the G-string noodling, it cuts through nice. Sounds like he
changed his strings before every song.
Crushpile sounds like so many different bands I can't even put my finger on
them. I'm hearing everything from Tool to Sevendust.
Hey now, on track 3 "Nutlob", we've got the slap bass revival. I think we
should leave the slap bass to Bootsy and Jaco Pastorious. Let sleeping dogs
lie.
Theres some random cover art on this disc. The cover is a pic of a tornado,
and the back is a pixilated mess of what I assume to be the aftermath of said
tornado. I am definitely not a van of bands that just surf the net for cool
pics of destruction to use for album or demo art. I know not everyone has the
ability or the means to create original artwork but the age old art of
tearing violent pictures out of the back pages of Time magazine and calling
it an album cover is tired, especially when the front and back cover is death
and destruction and the band shot is 5 guys sitting on a canoe, smiling and
holding oars.
This is a decent effort by some decent players, it's a cool disc for the band
to sell at their gigs I guess but I can't see this going much further. It's
just too generic and sounds like too much other shit out there. You can walk
into just about any rehearsal studio in Jersey on a Thursday night and hear
the sounds of Crushpile. Get it ?
File this disc in the "to be crushed" pile….haha…. I know, I know… but come
on, I thought of that one when Steve handed me the disc.
