The Defilers:Metal Mountains
From Louisville Punk/Hardcore History
Sweet Jesus. This band is more than heavy. Crushing. No, devastating. This record will knock the wind out of you before it punches you in the gut. My arms are so tense I can hardly type as it fills my headphones with musical gore. This band is gross and disgusting in the vein of the Stooges ? I envision plenty of broken glass, shredded speakers and bleeding eardrums at Defilers shows. They?ve got the MC5 ?I wanna see a sea of hands? raw-nerve energy element in tact, and a heavy (no pun intended) reverence for blues-infused rock ?n? roll, evidenced on tunes like ?Travel Bottle?; that is, before it terrorizes your nerves the way the Melvins do ? too slow and mellow for comfort. It must be something akin to the head-in-the-gallows anticipation of death: You can?t be serene, no matter how beautiful the day, because you know you?re about to be overwhelmed. Although you may not know it from the city?s musical rep, there?s a good stoner rock contingent here. File this next to ARCH, the Glasspack and all its side projects. Not to be missed. ?Stephen George