Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Sweet Tooth Abortion


Band: The Peppermints
Album: Sweet Tooth Abortion
Label: Pandacide (can't find release date)

Sometimes, you get angry. Someone makes coffee with used grinds, someone steps on your new kicks, someone trips you, and you get furious. And in this age of access to music at any time, you damned well need something aggressive to listen to during those trying moments. While The Peppermints may not be the most skilled band in the world, their sheer velocity makes up for their shortcomings. Of course, that's not to say this is some '77 punx rip off. Au contraire, Sweet Tooth Abortion, their first album, has more in relation to older noise-pop bands, such as black tambourine and henry's dress, with a splash of the musical defiance of no wave.

I could say all these fancy words to try to describe their sound, but frankly, it's probably giving them the upper hand. On the track Snail Bait, it sounds like the band recorded themselves with a cassette player they buried under some mud and then distorted. The vocals are almost indistinguishable, and most of what can be heard is drums. Other tracks have better sound quality, but the results end up being for the worse because of their audibility. For example, the song Never Matter is two chords with a very basic, yet still somehow completely out of key melody on top - making the track almost boring. When the band attempts to stretch out a bit and test their skills with a more complex melody, such as on I. P. Freely On Black Velvet, it's even more horrendous. The band works better when they try not to exceed their limited skills with their instruments - most of the songs are at least enjoyable.

I'm not one to say that music is bad because the musicians are unskilled - I frequently listen to Jandek and the Shaggs. But the truth is, both of those artists at least brought some creativity to the table. The Peppermints rarely attempt anything creative - the only exceptions being the last two tracks and the song Octopus, which all somehow manages to conjure up James Chance and Lydia Lunch. The rest come off as straight forward, occassionally fast, punk.

While I have not purchased their latest album, Paw Track's Jesüs Chryst, I can only hope that The Peppermints decided to ditch their attempts at melodicism and replace them with even noisier, scratchier tracks. For now though, the extremely short Sweet Tooth Abortion is worth listening to maybe once. But only after getting physically burned.

Highlights:
Octopus
Nancy
It Was Four


Weak Tracks:
Never Matter
I. P. Freely on Black Velvet

Tracklisting:
1. Rodeo
2. Octopus
3. Nancy
4. Down + Down
5. Snailbait
6. Babies
7. Never Matter
8. Jay Says
9. I. P. Freely on Black Velvet
10. Walk/Walkin'
11. It Was Four
12. I'll Ignore a Whore

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