Fudge

Southside Speedway (Caroline)
by Scott Hefflon

Building off a solid foundation of alternative power pop, Fudge fine-tunes the strong melodies, spacey noise transitions, and garage punk in a 30 minute, 11 song disc. Produced by the Dambuilders’ Eric Masunaga, the sound remains pure indie yet more focused, thorough and tight. Surprisingly, the title track, usually reserved for the radio anthem hit single, is scratchy, feedback noise. Another surprise is the blurry Jesse “The Body” Venturish photo on the back. From the humorous, bare bones graphics and credits to the trippy Photoshop image, the visuals follow the same duality of the tunes: simple and basic structures with the occasional, “Hey, let’s play with some weird effects” tucked away where you’d least expect it.