Nightstick

Death to Music (Relapse)
by Brian Varney

This is fucked. This music is not right, and it’s made by people who aren’t right. There’s music made by smart and reasonably normal people who are just play-acting at being evil (Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne, for example), and then there’s music that’s so fucked, so evil, that there’s no way the people making the music are law-abiding citizens. That’s where Nightstick comes into play. This album begins with a nine-minute exorcism of hate called “Babykiller” and continues thusly. Like fellow sludgerockers Electric Wizard (Nightstick is the only band thanked on the inside of EW’s Supercoven album), Nightstick construct a wall of noisy hate with huge chunks of distorted guitar and not much else. This is nowhere near as hedonistic as Electric Wizard, though. The only thing Nightstick seems to take genuine pleasure in is hating your fucking ass with a burning passion. There are no tempos to speak of, but the “tunes” don’t plod so much as bash. There are also lots of spiffy guitar leads courtesy of “22 year old ’70s-obsessed acid-casualty” Cotie Cowgill to spice things up, but ultimately all of the music’s facets point towards one common goal, which is to slash your face open and pour acid on the wound. My claims may seem highly exaggerated, but judge not before you’ve experienced the majesty of Nightstick’s hatred. I can’t see myself plopping this into the player at any old time of the day, but when you’re in the mood to, say, bash your neighbor’s skull in, it’s just about the best thing you can choose.
(PO Box 251 Millersville, PA 17551)