The San Diego sound of terror lives on! Volume Eleven set about baffling your mind and scarring you for life with their chaotic blend of trashed up hardcore that’s got some rock’n’roll influences, plus in-song sound effects that sound like they’ve been lifted from the current series of Doctor Who repeats now airing on BBC2.
The first six songs were all recorded live, but you’d never tell. They open up with a pretty manic song that breaks down and gets a real groove going. Vocals are high pitched shrieks, with some spoken word interludes whilst that eerie old style sci-fi music plays in the background. And they continue to ply this utterly fucked up sound over both sides of this clear piece of 12″ plastic. “Super Queemie” features vocals very reminiscent of the old Antioch Arrow style, i.e. that of man who quite clearly sounds like he is losing his mind. At the end of this track, the TARDIS lands in an old, disused quarry in Southern England. And side one is done. It plays on 33rpm, yet appears to be done in 7 minutes. What?
Side two, freaky electronic noises that not even Joan of Arc would dare touch, the Daleks are coming! And so are Volume XI. Oh my, more out of control guitars and the desperation of the A-Arrow vocals will cause you to rip out hair and acquire premature baldness. Mummy, the man is scaring me. One song sounds like what if Indian Summer were a crazy rock’n’roll band. For real! Lots of repetative chunky rnr riffs, with all sorts of yelping, screaming, distortion, feedback and chaos. Will tire you out. Oh, and after all that, you have to navigate the strange effect they made with the record grooves, because it goes into an infinite loop and starts playing a noise that will push you over the edge if you let it go on for too long. After that is an MC5 cover, but I am in no position to validate that for a fact.
Simple enough to say, if you at any time have found yourself spazzing out to the sounds of Antioch Arrow or just going berzerk to Angel Hair, then you will absolutely love what these guys are doing. Bonus 3D glasses to view the cover: “Right Eye, Left Eye” – oh boy.
Ex-members of Honeywell, you snivelling wretch. And fuck you too, I wrote this review twice. I like this one better.