Slime Tapes #2

July 22, 2013 5:42 AM

Slime Tapes #2
Slime Tapes #2 is the first demo from my garage-punk band, Brain Zaps. If you like noisy songs about slime, dinosaurs, and food you'll like us.

Role: singer

posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants (3 comments total)

I'm super hesitant about being so flatly critical about recording quality, but the nothing-but-treble, distorted-as-all-shit mix is really, really getting in the way here. There's outlines and hints of something cool and garage-noise grooving in here and the brash talky vocal thing seems to fit well, but I can't imagine wanting to put on this recording for other than writing out an informed opinion about why the recording isn't good.

Like, there could be some listenable rock on the other side of this cellphone recording but it's stuck on the other side of the cellphone. Unless your guys' goal is specifically and primarily to make some sort of statement about the aesthetics of blown-out mics and digital peaking, this is not really fair to either you or to the listener. Even a single SM57 room mic into a basic USB breakout box into someone's laptop would be a huge improvement in terms of getting over the basic hump of a sane EQ profile and managing the distortion of the mix as a whole.

I'd like to have a chance to like this but it's a hard hard hill to climb starting from this spot. Fans will listen to shitty boots of live shows, but they have to be fans first.
posted by cortex at 2:28 PM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I agree, it sounds like shit, but I like it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:35 PM on July 23, 2013

By which I mean, this Bandcamp would make me book or go to see this band. Not that I'd listen to it, especially not on headphones lol. Also I'd call it Sludgey more than Garage-y. Reminds me of a lot of post-hardcore going around DC with the speak-singing and the mid-tempo off-kilter beats. Put in some more total freakout freejazz parts and some more quiet whispering menace parts and you got yourself a Jesus Lizard. Scull!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:40 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]