Ballad of Jon Simon

VINYL FORMAT. This one caused an almost déjà vu feeling until it became clear that Hot Guts released a 7" with the power to do what so few (debut) 7"s do these days: Make the listener uncontrollably jump on the "other woman" (as my lady likes to call my laptop) and search for the possibility of additional releases. . . especially a full length! As of this writing, not only does this band not have a full length, they seem to lack a bit of respect on the Philly streets. If I ran a label like Badmaster and the notion of a label party or showcase popped into my brilliant head, the flyer would not close with this: ". . .and Hot Guts." If a band called Hot Guts gave me these three songs for a future 7", the flyer for my label blowout would instead begin with "HOT GUTS ARE THE FUTURE OF HEAVY MUSIC AND THEY WILL BE PLAYING WHENEVER AND HOWEVER THEY PLEASE!" I do not toss around this sort of language in a casual, daily fashion. Hot Guts earned it with the mystery greatness spread thick across each song. "The Ballad of Jon Simon" was particularly striking right off the bat, and it must be placed on the table that this is not the type of "great" in which there's no hint whatsoever as to how it relates to the band's record collection. Definite Swans-love happening here, both in the pummel and the Gira-deep vocals, and this is tastefully if not predictably matched with some other industrial/early-noise creep-o's like Chrome and the venerable Throbbing Gristle. I heard early Killing Joke and Nick Cave, too, but to drive home an adage that can't be driven hard enough, it's all what you do with the source material. Now, looking at that layer of Hot Guts, and no, I have never heard anything like this, ever, and thankfully, it's a good thing this time.