Serving Time In The Middle Of Nowhere

Meth Drinker - Meth Drinker
2011, Always Never Fun Records

On their self titled debut New Zealanders Meth Drinker set the bar for what's to come right at the onset. Opener Deprivation is a plodding, ragged, nasty piece of downtuned punkfuelled hatesludge. There is no beauty or light to be found here. There isn't anything even remotely positive that you can draw from this album. Only a damp sense of failure and angst, of drug induced psychosis, misdirected rage and self-destruction. This is the soundtrack to a decaying life of rotting teeth and substance abuse and a slowly deteriorating surrounding world that doesn't care if you live or die. This is pitch black, devastatingly depressive shit. But it's also very, very good. There are obvious shades of EyeHateGod clearly present but that in no way detracts from the force of these rumbling, feedback-laden dirges of death, failure and spite. None of the nine tracks are overly long or in any way boring or droney, which is too often the case with this style of music. This is doom/sludge with a huge side-order of Flipper/Black Flag snottiness and chaos attached to it, as well as some obligatory Black Sabbath riffing. Meth Drinker in no way re-write the book or anything. They just do what they do really, really well. Even if I do feel like I need a long, hot shower after listening to it.