Tweet
Released by: Acetate Records
Released on: January 14th, 2014.
Purchase From Amazon
It's been six years since we've seen a new Supersuckers album. Get It Together, which came out in 2008, was okay, pretty decent really, but far from the band's best work. In fact, some might say that the band, while still a lot of fun and consistently churning out some pretty solid songs, left their best days behind them when the new millennium came rolling around. Surprisingly enough, Get The Hell proves that the quarter century old Seattle based rock n roll machine that is the Supersuckers still has a whole lot of life left in them yet. They're messing around here. I don't know that they really needed a comeback album, but they've definitely delivered one.
This time around the band is made up of Dan 'Thunder' Bolton on guitar and backing vocals, Metal Marty Chandler on guitar and backing vocals, Captain Von Streicher on drums and backing vocals and of course one Eddie Spaghetti on bass and lead vocals. The album was recorded in Austin, Texas at Willie Nelson's studio and mixed by none other than 'motherfuckin' Blag The Ripper' aka Blag Dhalia from The Dwarves. That can only be a good thing, right?
So let's get down to it. The thirteen tracks that make up Get The Hell are:
Intro / Get The Hell / Something About You / Fuck Up / High Tonight / Pushin' Thru / Never Let Me Down Again / Gluttonous / Disaster Bastard / Bein' Bad / That's What You Get For Thinkin' / Shut Your Face / Rock On
Intro open the album, it's a quick and noisy little number mostly made up of air raid sirens that soon leads into the title track, Get The Hell, the second longest song on the album at 3:20. Eddie's voice sounds a little older here, cigarette and whiskey soaked, but that gives it a bit more authenticity when he sings about the evil's in the world and all the bad things that are to be. The chorus is catchy and easy to sing along to, the twin guitar attack moving from moments of shrill feedback and distortion to clean riffing, all at a quick pace. This is a good stuff.
Something About You is maybe a little bit quicker and catchier than Get The Hell, the guitars are heavier and a bit chunkier while Eddie's vocals are quick and to the point. Again we get a really hooky, catchy chorus, gang vocals on the back up and some really solid playing in the guitar department. Again, a pretty great rock n roll song, the band isn't breaking new territory but instead delivering a great track in the tried and true Supersuckers tradition. More aggressive, nastier and fun is Fuck Up, Eddie's ode to consistently fucking things up - 'I'm still the fucking fucked up leader of this fucked up band and I'll fuck shit up any way I can cause I'm a fuck up.' The F-bomb quotient is off the charts here and it's completely fitting for a band that's raised their middle fingers to anyone and everyone since their inception way back in the late 1980s. There's some cool harmonica on this track, giving it a bluesy feel that works in its lyrical context, but never at the cost of pure rock n roll spirit. This is one that's definitely going to go over well when the band hits the road in the coming months.
High Tonight is a song about drugs, about not feeling any pain, about living for the moment and for the buzz. It's got a catchy chorus about getting high with someone you want to get high with, having a good time with someone you want to have a good time with. Is it a ridiculous song about excess and bad behavior? You know it, but there's an oddly romantic angle to it that makes it a lot more interesting than your average party song, but it works on that level too. Pushin' Thru speeds things up a bit, letting the band make use of some great vocal harmonies as Eddie sings a song about looking past the hard luck times in hopes of better days. There's a bit of country twang to this one but it never goes full on country like the band has done in the past - I guess that sort of makes it a southern rock number, but there's no shame in that when it works as well as it does here. Never Let Me Down Again is, believe it or not, an unlikely Depeche Mode cover. This could and probably should have gone horribly wrong but by putting the guitars way up front in the mix, harmonizing on the vocals in the chorus and blasting through it at a pretty relentless pace the band makes this song their own. It's probably safe to say most Depeche Mode fans will hate this because they really and truly turn it into a 'balls out' RAWK song. Somehow this turned out to be one of the most enjoyable songs on the album.
Moving right along, we get back into seedy, sleazy bad behavior territory with Gluttonous, a track that starts out with some weird effects pedals giving the guitars a bit of a trippy sound but once Eddie starts singing about steak, beer and fucking your sister and your other, we're back in the fast lane. It's a pretty great track about the joys of excess and the inability to stop. We've all had those nights, but this is more about a lifestyle choice than a night of overdoing it at the bar. Disaster Bastard fits right in with this theme, it sounds a bit like Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell era distortion as Eddie sings about not giving a fuck and living life as a lightning rod for trouble. The guitars once again are right up front, solid leads over some sticky rhythm playing, but the drums really stand out here as they pound and pound and pound. There's a petty cool solo here too, not too short not too long, just right for a song like this. Finishing up what is basically a trilogy is another song about being bad, aptly titled Bein' Bad. It's got more ZZ Top to it than SxDx but not to its detriment. These three tracks work really well together, each one a catchy number in its own right but fitting nicely alongside each other both musically and thematically.
Bringing the album to a close are the last three tracks starting with That's What You Get For Thinkin', probably the fastest track on the album. Sometimes you've just got to shut your brain off and go with it and here Eddie sings about one of those times while the rest of the band on backing vocals trade off of his lead. Shut Your Face will have you singing along in no time, it's straight to the point at a second past the two minute mark, letting some AC/DC style guitar work get things moving at a good pace with Eddie's vocals getting a bit more gravelly here than anywhere else on the record. It's another 'middle finger' song, the kind that the Supersuckers have made a career out of. The album closes with another cover, this time the offer up their take on Gary Glitter's Rock On, which is almost a gospel track in the sense that it's got that foot stomping, hand clapping quality to it but the howls in the backing vocals have a pretty rad and unholy quality to it that makes for an interesting contrast. This one builds to a screeching finale and it ends the album on a fantastically appropriate and completely unexpected finale.
Chock full of great guitar playing and killer rhythm work and complimented by songwriting that runs the gamut from gleefully offensive to simple living for the moment battle cries with healthy doses of heartfelt reality thrown into the mix, Get The Hell is the best album to come from Eddie Spaghetti's road worn outfit in a long time. Blag's production work keeps it raw enough to matter but slick enough to work and, maybe because of that extended hiatus, here we get a band firing on all cylinders with an album that harkens back to their early work without recycling past glories.
You can download the title track from the album for free from Acetate records here.
And check out this twelve minute preview!
And last but not least, this video for Pushin' Thru is also pretty rad.
