Puny Human

Revenge is Easy (Small Stone)
by Craig Regala

So much ass to kick, so little time. Running a mid-tempo sludge-inflected boogie dagger through classic hard-edged arena rock (as it rode the metal/hard rock devide of ’74) and pouring the copious amount of richly-nutrious blood into a bottle labeled “For Wild Club Action, Transfuse Weekly” allows for much positive rock action. Puny Human wouldn’t have to stretch past their back pocket to pull out a hefty cover of “Mississippi Queen.” Yeah, you could see ‘m as tangential to the “Stoner Rock” thing, but hey, what the fuck is that stuff anyways? I’ll tell you what it is; it’s rock writ large and gruntly, heavy-bottomed and loaded for bear with a rhythm between a hipshake and a headbang on the ass end and a plethora of grooves/riffs from the last 33 years of heavy foot history on the front line. That said, these guys are right in there. The singer brays in a hearty manner, the guitars do the mastodon shuffle, and the bass and drums lock in enough that everyone else can take time to run down to the Record Connection to buy those live Cactus reishes without a power loss.

So sure, if you’re gonna narrowcast these guys, say you’re gonna make a car tape for a friend indicating both current and immediate prehistory of stomp’n’roll, here’re some peers dealing in the rock lingua fracas in a similar way. Start with Revenge… opening cut, “Raze the Leghorn Bar.” Follow it with stuff from Kyuss, Sheavy, Orange Goblin, Altamont, Fu Manchu, Honky, then Puny Human’s most AC/DCish cut, “Stink Of Two Men.” Flip the C-90 and go with the ter-“Gimme Back My Bullets”-riffic “Eating Cigarettes” and hit ‘m with Clutch, COC, Sabbaths’ cover of the Crows’ “Evil Woman” and a cut from Dis-engage (new one on Man’s Ruin soon). Take a big breath and end it all with some roots stuff; Nitzinger’s “Louisiana Cockfight” and Raging Slab’s “Don’t Dog Me,” before dropping Puny Human’s descending circular-riff-as-roadmap-to-doom “Spatial Interpolation” for the big finish. Time it right and as you hit the end of the beer, the end of the road and the end of the tape, you’ll be ready for the trip home and the whole disc proper ’cause it’s a good one.
(PO Box 02007 Detroit, MI 48202)