Say it with me just once: “Hookerfight.” Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?

The Sacramento fuck-all stoner trio owe some of their lumbering groove to Bongzilla, but the blown-out vocals of guitarist T.J. Ferrari and the occasional burst of speed, as on “Hellbound and Down” from their latest EP, Siren’s Revenge, put them in a different — if likewise sludge-filled — category. The EP is available for purchasing and sampling on their MySpace page, along with the 2009 full-length …And Then There Were Three, which is even more raw-sounding than its successor.

Joining Ferrari in Hookerfight are bassist Phil Rodriguez and drummer Matt Amott, and though the former is somewhat lost in the mix on the Siren’s Revenge tracks, whose production is rough at best and whatever’s less than rough at worst, all three in the trio manage to make themselves heard over the course of the EP’s 33 minutes. They probably could have gotten away with calling it a full-length, but the spread in time difference seems to make the EP tag fit better. The opening title track clocks in at 14:59, and closer “Sonic Mountain” is 11:32, but none of the other three tracks top 2:55, which is “Hellbound and Down,” a noisy punk take on which Napalm Death meets thunderous amplification and a “yee-haw!” call.

By contrast, “Reckon So…..” which follows is 1:58 of comparatively mellow shamanistic riffing, imbued with a sense of ritual despite an unnecessary change in the guitar line before a fade out and long silence that leads into “Sonic Mountain.” The only other cut on Siren’s Revenge, “Nag’s Head,” is also under two minutes long and based entirely around acoustic guitar. Hookerfight, it seems, revels in presenting a lighthearted face and backing it up with some real diversity. That’s probably just the way it should be.

Hard to say which facet of their sound results in the best work, though the riffs of “Sonic Mountain” — audible, once again, on MySpace — are definitely in the running. It’s such a cliche to say it, but it’ll be interesting to hear where they take their sound next. A more professional recording job might allow some of the tonal and stylistic intricacies hinted at on Siren’s Revenge come to the fore, but of course there’s something to be said for the lower-fi demo quality as well. In any case, Hookerfight‘s hunger comes through clearly, and for that, they’re well worth keeping on the radar.

Tags: California, Hookerfight, Sacramento, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 2:24 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.