ROBOTS AND EMPIRE
Omnivore
(Trip Machine)

NYIA/ANTIGAMA
Split
(SelfMadeGod)

BROWN JENKINS
Dagonite
(Moribund)

SLOTH
A Whole Other World of Fun
(At War With False Noise)

CAN KICKERS
Live at Lavazone
(Fistolo)

LOOM
Angler 

(Exigent)

HATER
The 2nd

(Burn Burn Burn)

MORE REVIEWS

Some may remember Hater as the 90’s psychedelic garage project containing Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron (also of Pearl Jam) and Ben Shepherd with member of Monster Magnet (John McBain), along with Jason Waterman and Brian Wood of Devil Head (who is the brother of Mother Love Bone’s deceased vocalist Andrew Wood). Back in 1993 Hater released an eponymous debut through major A&M. Some, like yours truly, may not remember Hater at all. And that’s ok too, because The 2^nd sounds a bit like a few musicians got together had a bit too much to drink and smoke got to thinking that maybe jamming for a few minutes could kinda fun and came up with these half-assed results. Read; slurred words, lazy playing, generic garage rock chords, tamed psychedelia. Read; an uncooked stew of Stooges-like lazy numbers. Not surprisingly; The 2^nd is culled from a series of demos recorded back in 1995; during pre production for Soundgarden’s Superunknown record when all these musicians perhaps had nothing better to do than to see what shit’s up. In other words, I am fairly certain The 2^nd is the leftovers from Hater’s debut.

And what shit’s up is for the most part highly unimaginative and mildly poor garage rock. It is not an exaggeration to say that regardless of who is handling the vocals here for the greater part most seem to try to be channeling Iggy Pop. But that’s not the most annoying thing about The 2^nd, what annoys me is how derivative this sounds and that when we take into consideration that Hater was a project of seasoned musicians giving free reigns to their imaginations and all they could come up with was this is a bit sad.  “Curtis Bligh” does the whole Stooges thing to a T and was it not for the existence of the Detroit wildmen it could be considered as a passable track. There are a couple of blues based tracks, like the opener “Try” which is that for a bit and is grunge for another bit. Also, most of the songs have good parts but as a whole fall way short. Throughout the album you can sense the power and talent floating in the air, but it sounds like Hater just took this too much like a fun project and in return what we get is a few songs with a lot of unrealized potential.

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