REINO ERMITAñO
Rituales Interiores
(I Hate)

HARVEY MILK
Life...The Best Game in Town
(Hydra Head)

CAPILLARY ACTION
So Embarrassing
(Pangaea)

STALINGRAD
S/T
(Self-Released)

SLOW HORSE
Rusher
(Sophomore Lounge)

MAR DE GRISES
Raining the Waterhearts

(Firebox)

BIGELF
Cheat the Gallows 

(Custard)

MORE REVIEWS

Following a few stellar reissues via Relapse Records which very timely seemed to finally shed the small spotlight on this Athens, GA band comes Life… The Best Game in Town, the new album from all of a sudden everybody's darling Harvey Milk. It is a very potent display of sludge metal period. At times, it is also very reminiscing of the sound of The Melvins. But if you knew Harvey Milk already that shall come as no surprise.  It’s not like Harvey Milk sound just like The Melvins, but they do in fact share more than a few similarities. Especially in the guitar department where Harvey Milk excel at laying down very blunt metal riffs.  The main difference being that the axe work of Creston Spiers totally lacks the histrionic approach of Buzz Osbourne. That’s an advantage by the way, as it makes for music as direct and shocking as a sucker punch to the testicles. Just check those slowly hammering riffs. They are a bit of a nightmare to get through, but their lobotomizing force is giant.  The connection doesn’t stop there, bassist Joe Preston has now joined Harvey Milk. Preston is semi famous for his work with bands like Earth, High On Fire, Thrones and…..The Melvins.

Life…The Best Game in Town is a brutal listen. It is also a clear display of matter over brain. Matter being the brutal force that’s channeled throughout and brains being how many notes you cram into a song. In this case, for the most part not many.  What we get here is some seriously aural damage discharge. The first couple of songs (“Death Goes to the Winner” and “Decades”) slowly chip away at your cortex by dragging one-to-two-note guitars and offering gimmick-less vocals.  There is feedback and then static giving Harvey Milk the edge that’s just little part of their charm. If you listen closely to those details, you see the most experimental side to their rock usually tipping the scale and distancing their sound from mere metalness.

On occasions we get left-field instrumental moments like that hectic start of “After All I’ve Done For You, This is How You Repay Me?”. Or the whole of “We Destroy the Family”.  It’s fun. It’s quick. It shows an entirely different more dynamic side to Harvey Milk and it does sound like The Melvins. What else about The Melvins? Yeah, the vocals do sound a bit like those of Buzz Osborne when he’s not really trying to sing. It’s hard to avoid comparisons. Especially if you are new to Harvey Milk. So the motivation behind searching for this should be that on its own Life… The Best Game in Town is simply a pretty darn good album.

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