With song titles like "Robosexual Cybergasm" and I shit you not, "Oh Shit Part 2: Oh No Nevermind, It's Chill, I Was Just Hallucinating," a track that actually comes before "Oh Shit! Hit the Red Button," you might wonder how serious Huge Rat Attacks is as a band. Strangely, there is no real sense of absurdist humor in their music. It's mostly psychedelic jubilation swathed with torment, a little like a lowerfalutin Mars Volta.
Comprised of former Tora Tora Torrance members, Huge Rat Attacks hits the ground running, opening for major acts like Diamond Nights, Pink Mountaintops and the Black Angels little more than a year after their official inception.
"Cougars," their full-length debut comes across like a loud, heavily composed, mutant gesticulation of space punk ready to pick up any and all streetwalkers with a thumb outstretched. "Robosexual Cybergasm" grabbed me right away with vocalist Jason Oehrlein's caterwaulin' over disco hi-hats and a verb-soaked guitar like a lovesick banshee in the grips of a Robitussin-induced nightmare.
Singing about things like werewolves, Buddhists, sunglasses and black holes, Oehrlein's lyrics mirror the otherworldly diversity of the musical components. Like any psyche-minded space punk record, there are a number of long multi-sectioned epic tracks (three are more than eight minutes!) and there's even an untitled bonus track filled to the gills with backwards audio. But don't let the prog flags turn you away - it's more like smart psyche-punk than dumbed down ELP.
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