HAUNTED GEORGE / HEX DISPENSERS:
Forest Ray Colson’s Pile O’Meat: 7” EP
I like the concept. Two songs each. Both bands do the same songs: an original and a cover of the other band. Haunted George: Really? I can’t figure out if the joke’s on the listener or George. The first song’s a reverby, in-a-pool recording of a one man band that, I’m guessing, is supposed to be coming across as a paranoid stomp through a destroyed wasteland via a serial killer, but it comes across more as ooky-spooky camp that’d be playing in the background of a Munsters episode. Hex Dispensers: That’s more like it. Their version turns George’s “Pile O’ Meat” into an Undertones Vs. Marked Men powerpop raver that makes the song sound like a Winston Smith collage come to life: cocained-up, teeth-baring consumers thinly butchering the things that are truly ingesting them. Totally worth it for the Hex Dispensers side. I love danceable destruction. –Todd Taylor (Hook Or Crook)