Labels: self released
Review by: Alex Deller
Named as they are and sounding like they do, one might be forgiven for mistaking Mothertrucker for a team of sweaty greasers stinking up some forgotten satellite town that’s gradually being swallowed by the burning desert around it. Instead, they hail from Birmingham “” about as far away from stubborn cacti and sun-bleached steer skulls as you can get without building yourself a sodding igloo. Not that these geographical inconsistencies hinder them a jot, opening this here CD with the kind of rollicking Children of the Grave-esque Josh Homage that could easily have snuck itself onto that old Welcome to Meteor City compilation and trounced much of the competition in so doing. That’s not to say, however, these folks are merely a bunch of Kyuss-jocking one trick ponies. While Mothertrucker masterfully dispense bonce-rattling riffage and thundering drum rolls there’s a pensive side fighting to make its way through the fuzz and yellow-green smoke, suggesting a fondness for the arty smarts of Temporary Residence as much as the lead-heavy grooves of Mans Ruin. Trickling arpeggios and creeping bombast sidle effortlessly alongside weighty, no-brainer riffs in such a way as to make it impossible to figure where one ends and the other begins, fashioning for themselves a blurred horizon that benefits immensely from all its frazzled trickery.