Album Review - Dirt Mall - Got the Goat By the Horns

Shitty vocals, a "raw" punk lite sound, and songs that are about as straightforward as you can get. This is Dirt Mall and their garage rock album "Got the Goat By the Horns". This album is just no frills-low skill dirty rock that relies on repetitive heavy grooves to push the album along. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't.

"Medicate" has disjointed vocals, represented in that punkish "who the fark cares if I can sing or not?" manner that's more attitude than skill. "Hell Los Angeles" has some half-tasty rhythms and 70s styled guitar riffs, it dares to take off but pretty much keeps it reigned in. A trait that the entire album shares. The worst moment is the flat vocals, something else that plagues the whole album.

"The Demons and the Damned" is about as pretentious as they get, clocking in at around nine minutes and shoving as much distorted guitars and thumpin drums as possible into that time period. Of course it takes three minutes of springy guitars and backbone drumming before the song actually does anything entertaining. The only song that truly captures the imagination is the cleverly titled "I'm Not Saying What You Did Was Wrong But Your Timing Could Have Been Better" which could be shortened to "INSWYDWWBYTCHBB" which is still... ridiculous. The name is much more memorable than the song, even that's a stretch.

The band has a sense of humor, as you can tell by reading the liner notes and what-not, but self claimed "world famous"? Surely not. That's delusions of grandeur right there, and considering that this disc offers nothing original or even interesting, it's a sad reflection on their state of minds. The music itself is fairly humorless, a comedic injection could have been the path that would have lead to being in their favor. It would have given this lifeless 'garage status' album more punch and accessibility. Instead the low, garage stripped approach of the music is repetitive and tiresome, even when they are throwing chunks of 70s hard rock at it and hoping that will stick.

Before the eight tracks are even halfway finished, they seem to have run out of ideas. Monster riffs are nonexistant, instead they run the guitars through the distortion and let that vibrate through the music. It works once or twice but after the fourth or fifth song that is doing the same bloody thing at a similiar pace, it just seems completely uninspired. It's as if they are running purely on their attitude fumes and didn't think the actual musical product all the way through. You can fake this stuff in concert with some quirky stage showmanship and get a crowd going on energy alone. On the recording, where you are captured forever and day playing "that" song "that" particular way, they just can't get the songs nailed down in any form that's interesting enough to continue on or even replay the disc. And those vocals surely aren't helping the situation either.

So Dirt Mall "Got the Goat By the Horns" is down n dirty rock that exploits a punk twist. They have been compared to the Hellacopters and that's a good enough description. Modern rock + punk, it works if its your thing but really, Dirt Mall's debut is too repetitive for its own good and whoever told "Johnny Anguish" that he could sing was deaf. Approach at your own peril.

Written by Alanna
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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Ratings

Alanna: 3/10

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