Gropetown - Phat Trophies - split - Tape (2010)

Labels: Winning Sperm Party
Review by: Joe Caithness

Gropetown opens this split with the sound of a pre-teen Lydia Lunch riding Willy Wonkas boat down that weird tunnel that scared you as a child, only made spookier by the song titles inside out baby subject matter. The horrible carnival continues as their side goes in harder, not for the faint hearted. The slide guitar work would have Sylvester Weaver turn in his grave, while a bunch of very upset sounding people scream in pain from every angle. Everynow and again it gets stuck in an Ex esque broken up punk groove. Highlight is probably the final track “Including Human Doom” which is an oddly catchy hard rock riff descending into what can only be describe as an “almighty racket”… nice, if you’re that way inclined, which I am.

Phat Trophies seem to be an organ led punk band, which the world doesn’t have enough of it seems. Some of their riffs sound like the theme music to shit RPG diskette based PC games from the mid 90s, which sounds like an insult, but it’s really not, track 2 “Tetris”, sounds like I should be holding a poorly programmed broad sword. The internet doesn’t tell me much about this band, other the fact that it’s a girl and a boy and they wear bags on their heads with faces drawn on them. To be honest, a good length EP of songs like “Tetris” would be great!