CHAINSAW HOOKERS – Self titled
Blood Rock Records, April 2012
9.5/10
By Shane Pinnegar
Stepping out of a Tarantino/Zombie-esque desert hillbilly nightmare and onto the filthy stages of Australia’s most notorious dives are Chainsaw Hookers, a four piece that aurally emulate the explosive and destructive qualities of a thermite packed automatic shotgun.
Their self-styled “Blood Rock” is, in their own words “Eating dead babies, having orgies with blood covered ladies… a truck makes you explode, doing lines til you bleed out your nose” – Chainsaw Hookers are here to steal your children, people, and they WILL have a raucous old time doing it.
This eleven track debut album comes hot on the heels of their “First Blood” EP and Texas Is Hell single of last year, and is a devastating statement of intent for the band.
Opener Viper Meltdown is a surly, liquor fuelled, three-and-a-half minute night on the tiles, perfectly setting the album’s tone of belligerence and aggression. Charm school this ain’t!
Through the psycho meltdown of My Revenge and Never Sleep Again, Chainsaw Hookers show their true influences – celluloid violence and horror, wrapped up in a Motorhead meets Misifts leather brass knuckled glove, with more punk aggression and White Zombie snarls than you will know what to do with.
Party Man and Blood Moon continue the movie splatter themes, before the band pay homage to both “From Dusk Til Dawn” and “Death Proof” in a one-two nuclear powered punch of cinematic visualisation with Santanico Pandemonium and Death Proof, both perfectly evoking the spirit of their muse/visionary Tarantino. (Note to Quentin – if you know what’s what you will be featuring this band in your next movie!)
Last year’s single Texas Is Hell is still as belligerent a hardcore kidney punch as it was on first listen, then Deadly Spawn sees Chainsaw Hookers ploughing through another fantastically gruesome Fangoria bloodbath, their twin guitar wall of sound never letting the light through, much less room for anything as un-Blood Rock as a ballad!
There’s nothing slick about Chainsaw Hookers – 2 guitars, bass, drums, vocals are all Alex, Nathan, Andrew & Jon need, and the rawness of the sonic assault is equalled only by the clarity of the noise, thanks to a sterling recording and mastering job from Laurie McCallum at Sumo Studios and Jamal Ruhe at West Westside in New York respectively.
Blood Rock sees the Hookers eating babies, getting axed in two, doing chemical waste altered drugs and having orgies with bloodied women – it’s hilariously over the top, like their beloved B-horror-movies.
Album closer Get Back To Hell channels The Exorcist and early Venom in equal measures, ending this unflaggingly powerful album on another gloriously high note.
News that U.S. industry types are rating advance copies of the album amongst their best of the year is no surprise – “Chainsaw Hookers” is a turbo-charged desert death drive, a pitch-black midnight monster banquet and a splatter movie punk metal bloodbath at your local asylum, all rolled into a thirty five minute plasma-soaked serve of sonic dynamite.
If you’re going to let anyone tear you limb from limb and rape your aural cavities this year, make it Chainsaw Hookers. Hey man, that’s Blood Rock!
http://www.facebook.com/ChainsawHookers
Some other stuff you might dig
Category: CD Reviews