SuperHeavyGoatAss: Enablers to the End
Just when I thought I was done drinking for the night, along come SuperHeavyGoatAss, blazing a whiskey trail (I don’t even know what that means) with new album Nemesis on Arclight Records, right out of the fabled climes of Austin, TX. Having borne ready and boozed witness to several of their sets at past SXSW festivals — including the latest and most kickass at last year’s Small Stone Records day party, where free Mexican food meant a long, intestinally-thrilling afternoon — I can say first hand that whatever these dudes bring on CD, they more than deliver live.
What they bring on CD, as it happens, is the rock. And they do it with love. You can tell. Their guitar solos harken a resounding clarion of Skynyrd recklessness with none of the 40-years-later posturing or bullshit of any kind. They know neither pretense nor moderation and when the stoner rock shuffle kicks in for “Another Piece,” oh yes it is most welcome.
Last album, 60,000 Years (2005) felt dirtier than this, and there’s an almost — dare I say it? — classy edge to some of the structures of the songs; a bizarre kind of accomplishment, like they’ve been listening to the occasional Beatles LP along with their (balls) Deep Purple, early Zeppelin and Sabbath mainstays. You can hear it on the Abbey Road-sounding apocalyptic title-track. Album centerpiece “Ice” is a delayed-vocal excursion into the realms of sunny spacetime, all Tejas warmth and blown dust, “Take a Drink,” aside from being sound advice, is where the good grooves grow (ditto for the Clutch vibe on “Down that Road”) and “Nameless Grave” is a foot-stomping shitkicker of swaggering, nonsense-spewing confrontationalism; like the dudes David Cross talks about ripping your arms off and beating you with them and shit. Unstoppable.
It’s hard to argue with the kind of good-time doom the seven-minute “Tonite” preaches (more of that Beatles stuff there too), and throughout the album, what fuels SuperHeavyGoatAss is a sense of refined energy. They know they’re that damn good, and they’re only going to give you so much of it at a time. By the end of the record, you’re exhausted, but you feel like they could go all night. And they probably could. Fuckin’ band rules.
Nemesis finishes with the end of the world party ?Zodiac,? weaving barbecue-ready stoner riffs and classic metal to hyper-intimidating effect. 60,000 Years was strong, this is stronger. A pulsing bloodblister of Southern electricity and guitar-led shenanigans. Do you need it? Only like I need another beer…
Tags: Arclight, SuperHeavyGoatAss, Texas
