From their Pac-Man-inspired name to the Tom Denney t-shirt art and sound that blends elements of High on Fire, Torche, Neurosis, Unsane and Mastodon, Shreveport, Louisiana trio Power Pellut hit just about every mark for modern underground metal. Their self-titled debut, released vinyl-only by I’m Better than Everyone Records, offers such high-minded cuts as “Corky’s Revenge” and “If Only I Could Reach My Utility Belt…” and the use of Sunn amps by guitarist/vocalist Lonnie was so obvious that on my first listen, I picked it out without even seeing a picture of the band.

Fine. So they take the ever-emulated “Stones from the Sky” riff (the Helen of Troy for the post-metal movement; the riff that would launch a thousand bands) and transpose it onto Power Pellut opener “Black Molly.” Big deal. They play fast, thick metal that’s doom more in aesthetic than actuality, and though we all know expensive equipment does not a good band make, an angular track like “Rabbit Hole” has a sub-tech plod that seems to point out the behemoth doth stride. I’d be lying as well if I said “Corky’s Revenge,” with its deeply concerned screaming repetition of the lyric “March of the retards!” didn’t have a certain charm.

Sadly “The Gambler” isn’t a Kenny Rogers cover (that would have ruled), but instead another missing link from Remission brought straight out of Power Pellut‘s thunderous tones and dino-footprint riffing. Bassist Scott and drummer Trey, the former nearly indistinguishable from Lonnie‘s guitar, do an able job of providing additional heft to the material, bolstering the sludgy, nine-minute “Neato Bandidito” into a monstrously proportioned groove that devolves into feedback for its last two minutes as it makes way for closer “If Only I Could Reach My Utility Belt.” Kudos to the band for not putting “Neato Bandidito” last, and it’s an especially notable performance from Trey, but the big rock finish about three minutes in that leads to — you guessed it — more noise feels somewhat anticlimactic and ends Power Pellut on an underwhelming note of “meh.”

There’s potential here, but until the band becomes more self-aware in their songwriting and clearer about who they are as musicians, Power Pellut are going to have a hard time becoming any greater than the sum of their parts. That said, the pieces and influences the band has are well mixed and put together in such a way as to create something new from them. It’s just that a lot of young bands are finding the same results from the same equation. If they can manage to bring something individual to the table, they’ll be devastating. For now, they’re not off to such a bad start.

Power Pellut on MySpace

I’m Better than Everyone Records

Tags: I'm Better than Everyone, Louisiana, Power Pellut

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.