1.31.2010

Speedwalking through the Jerusalem Mall


Nice that a band can, in the span of three minutes, carve out, in the lapse/lull between albums, a song that asserts that they kind of rule right about now. You know you're itching to hear everything Eat Skull is cooking up for their next act. "Jerusalem Mall" might not give prescience to what's coming, but it's also not 7" fodder. The biker gang guitar line that drunkenly sears through the song is mighty heavy, metal even, reveling in a carnal scrap-heap of Royal Trux and Chrome records -- still there's a melody encased that proves a narcotic clarity. Eat Skull live by the code of grotesque nihilism and here, the Woodsist debut, is a perfect example. The b-sides, once heard on the excellent Eusta Kill compilation, are leftovers from the Wild and Inside sessions, though not to be deemed b-sides. "Don't Leave Me on the Speaker," in particular, raises the stakes of the band's Guided By Voices fixation. Which I happen to love amongst the muck. More Same Place the Fly Got Smashed.

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