It’s always a bit frightening to hear that a new record by a band has been given a “spit polish” or a “clean-up” or a “sound enema”.  Makes me think that they’ve hired a big name producer and all of sudden my scuzzy garage rock has been turned in to U2 for the noise-set.  Thus, I chalk my love of the new Eat Skull album (referred to by many as a “cleaned up” album) to two things:

1) I’ve never heard Eat Skull before, for a myriad of boneheaded reasons, and thus I cannot compare them to anything but this one point of musical context.  Fresh-faced and eager, yup, that’s me.

2) From what I’ve heard ’round the interwebs, these gents from P-Town, Oregon needed a bit of a scuzz reduction.  A lot of folk are claiming that with a cleaned up, slightly more melodic sound, that these fair fellows have really out done themselves.

I tend to agree.  But now here’s my quandry: if I dip back in to the discography am I going to be disappointed by their squelchy noise blasts, now that I’m attuned to their less squelchy noise blasts?  Please, somebody help me.

Eat Skull - Heaven’s Stranger

Eat Skull on Myspace