Spongehead – Review

Spongehead

(Triple X)
by Ryk McIntyre

Call this an urban album. Not because it wastes its time with any kind of “Street Sensibility/Credibility” garbageshit, but because it often sounds like a city: just as all the heavy trucks get started, horns blare and blend, lights flash on and on again, and a whole gritty metropolis pulses itself to its oily feet and trudges up the steep slope of another day. Strangely enough, it also reminds me of an old (any old) McGuyver episode where he saves the day by building an essential machine out of a tin can, two hair curlers, a copy of “A Boy’s Guide To Hygiene,” a rubber band, and a brick. SpongeHead, like Morphine, breaks the guitar/bass/drums mold. With the bass sounds provided by an electric sax played through a Ragnarok amp by Dave Henderson, a drummer who echoes the best of such hands-on loonies as John Bonham and Keith Moon, gargle-phlegm vocals and guitar riffs that may be one of the trucks I mentioned earlier in the review, SpongeHead offers you an in-on-the-event-but-tickets-are-sold-on-their-terms-only. If I tell you “Dog Day,” “The It,” or “1919” were my early favorites, then it’s worth mentioning that if Cop Shoot Cop or Fugazi melt harsh on your eager tongue, this will be a complimentary taste, kinda like raw ginger and garlic, diesel, and beer. Plus, the guitar that Doug Henderson plays is, in fact, home-made, which brings us back to the McGuyver reference. Legend has it that it was built from the bones of an Elder God, strings from a succubi’s hair, frets from old cat claws, and juice straight from that legendary Cold Day we all keep threatening Hell with. Luckily, drummer Mark E. Kirby is listed as a Reverend, because with where this band takes you, it’s nice to have someone holy watching your back.