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The Asound Are up Here on Another Wave, Covered in Hair

Posted in Reviews on January 24th, 2011 by JJ Koczan

When last heard from, North Carolinian rock trio The Asound were splitting their time with the more punk-fueled Flat Tires on a Tsugiri Records 7”. The label, run by The Asound bassist Jon Cox, now presents his band on a three-song self-titled CD EP. Their riff-led material is still rough sounding as it was last time, but taken on its own context, i.e. without another band on the release, it’s no harsher than any number of underground bands, the guitars of Chad Wyrick managing to come through just fine.

The first two tracks of The Asound’s The Asound will be familiar to anyone who heard the Flat Tires split… because they’re the same. Both “Joan” and “Snow White” appeared on the prior release, the change they’re getting here being mostly as regards format. The louder I play it, the less I care about the production quality of “Joan” (funny how that works), the low-end groove taking hold for the 4:50 duration and drummer Michael Crump’s kit bearing a no-doubt-coincidental sonic likeness to that on the last Goblin Cock record, or at least sounding no worse. Vocals are handled by Wyrick, who shows a Josh Homme influence in his clean delivery (not a complaint) and isn’t shy either about adding the occasional scream to the mix. As “Joan” plays out, Cox’s progression reminds some of Sleep, but if there’s a direct comparison to be made to another band, it’s got to be likening “Snow White” – the shortest track on The Asound at just 2:17 – to “Monsters in the Parasol” from Queens of the Stone Age’s classic Rated R. At least in its opening section, The Asound’s track is an almost direct port, if sped up, of the Homme-penned LSD paean, though to be fair, the trio don’t persist in the likeness, taking the structure to someplace else entirely.

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Flat Tires vs. The Asound: Easy Money for the Betting Man

Posted in Reviews on June 25th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

Having never encountered either Flat Tires or The Asound (which I assume is like the sound, but opposite), I reveled in the chance to check out this Flat Tires vs. The Asound split 7” single on Tsuguri Records, and all the more so once I saw the Jeff Clayton (The Antiseen) cover art, which has Sasquatch fighting a giant eagle on it. If there’s a more perfect metaphor for the current state of affairs in our nation, folks, I don’t know what it is.

Both bands call North Carolina home, Flat Tires in Hickory and The Asound in Connelly’s Springs, so they have that in common. The Asound have a more straightforward riff rock approach and are the younger of the two bands, having formed in 2009, whereas Flat Tires, for all four and a half minutes (two songs) of material they present here, affect a well-established aesthetic combining outlaw country and hardcore punkabilly that’s quick, to the point, and on Flat Tires vs. The Asound, really, really misogynist. Take that, ladies.

Flat Tires opens with “G D Woman,” on which vocalist Clint Harrison, sounding like a combination Hank III, Unknown Hinson and drunken uncle, threatens in the direction of some female, “Get out of my face or I’ll have to punch you in your face,” which I found neither charming nor humorous. The band behind Harrison (Bryon Smallwood on guitar, Jeremy Godfrey on drums and Scott Cline on bass) rocks furious and fast in a heavy honky tonk ZZ Top kind of way on “Crybaby,” which is topped with more lyrical ladybashing, the chorus being, “Cry baby, cry baby, whine, whine, whine.” Uh huh. Okay.

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