CHOOCHOO-
SHOESHOOT
Choose Your Own Romance
(Kythibong)

COFFINS
Buried Death
(20 Buck Spin)

ASRA
The Way of All Flesh
(Black Box)

ONE STARVING DAY
Broken Wings Lead Arms to
the Sun
(KNBVI)

OBSKURIA
Discovery of Obskuria
(World in Sound)

KLIMT 1918
Just in Case We'll Never Meet

Again 

(Prophecy)

HEAVY HEAVY 
LOW LOW
Turtle Nipples and the Toxic
Shock 

(Ferret)

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I am surprised by how musically fluent young bands, like this California quintet, are. But I wonder if it’s all just a bit of a disguise. The songs included in this, the band’s second full-length, go in all directions, but not at the same time. While these tunes may contain several styles and tempos, these are never mixed or even combined.  In other words, we could say that there are songs right next to songs that are next to songs. There just isn’t any silence or space separating them. That’s spazz I guess; which means that Heavy Heavy Low Low can’t keep their thoughts together for more than a few seconds.  In many occasions that modus operandi takes the listener along for a wild ride. In other probably more frequent occasions, such approach ends up making the listener nauseous losing him/her at almost every turn. Let’s not confuse this with high technicality. Sure, these guys can play, there just isn’t anything necessarily special about them.

That’s how in Turtle Nipple and the Toxic Shock, an album about ‘a bunch of jokes’ as vocalist Robbie describes it, we get plenty of music. Lots of it. But it may all just reveal itself as a ‘musical joke’ as well, and with very little redeeming value.  The main problem is it’s hard to discern between what is good and what is not. Perhaps, because mostly is not, but these guys can play.  I can see people who dig scattered brained bands like Mr Bungle digging this, but I can see those same people totally realizing that this is missing the virtuosic and true sense of freedom and contagious fun that that Mike Patton vehicle carried. 

Heavy Heavy Low Low’s songs are basically about everything heavy; fast riffs are played for a few seconds before shifting to an even faster riff, throw in a few seconds of angularity there, some screams in such section and errr… the whole thing is quite messy. I can really see a band like Heavy Heavy Low Low creating a good album. Turtle Nipple and the Toxic Shock is simply not it.   You can have many ideas in one song, but this is totally missing all consistency and substance. Even worse, is rather boring.

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