As Weird as Iowa

Review: Trash Dog “X-Dog”/ Zero Aggression “Anti-Life Equation=You Don’t Get to Live” – Detrivore Cassingle Series

Trash Dog are utter fucking garbage, with obvious intent and possible malice. It’s like that Marcel Duchamp thing where he wrote “R. Mutt” on a urinal, except this time around Duchamp is pissing in your ear while you look at it. The vocals here (by Witcher?) sound like Corky from Life Goes On covering some lost 60s bubblegum gem, while Darren Ho manages to sound like he just picked up a guitar yesterday, which I imagine took some genuine de-learning. Basically, this is for fans of the Shaggs, if they went to art school.

Zero Aggression may seem like the same deal on the surface, but is in fact a fundamentally different beast. First and foremost, Jack Gilbert is a dangerously demented freak, so hearing him screaming about how “you don’t get to live” is enough to send a chill down your spine – but meanwhile, thanks to some tight, sunny riffs, there’s such a pure optimistic epicness to it that you really want to be in a convertible with the top down.

Then we get a second movement, an unaccompanied disquisition about Horse Transport and Plank Manufacture, Gilbert’s menacing innocence turning some series of technical specifications into compelling Dadaism. By the time he shouts “Is everyone ready . . . for the transformation?” you believe this fucker can deliver, and you pause a little as you wait for the Rapture or . . . whatever this next-level shit will be. Then we get a tantalizing little treat at the end – the Stereolab-ish “remix” of the track, with a computer voice doing Gilbert’s vocals over an analogue(esque) wash of sickly-sweet glowing rainbow tones. The individual parts are great enough, but the movement between them makes this completely essential.