Album Review: Eye Flys - Tub of Lard

Thrill Jockey surprises me again. A label that I’m used to thinking of as primarily the home for electronic music and post-rock has released a banger of metallic hardcore album with Eye Flys’ Tub of Lard. It’s as brutal as anything you would expect on Equal Vision back in the ‘90s and if that doesn’t get you hyped, then go the f*ck home. Tub of Lard is the group’s first LP and follow up to their well-received 2019 debut EP Context. It’s as dirty, vicious, driving, and guiltless as their earlier recordings, invoking the scratching noise-rock rash of Unsane in equal measure with the joint-buckling churn of power-violence forerunners Despise You. It’s a truly malicious marriage of sounds, frightening enough to keep your inner demons up at night. The album’s title is the name that vocalist Jake Smith was given by his schoolyard “friends” as a kid, and alludes to the bullying he credits for his body dysmorphia. Anyone who was bullied as a kid can relate to its lasting impacts on your life, and Smith, rightfully or wrongly, is not ready to forgive here. No, instead, he is ready for his pain to be unleashed. “Tubba Lard” is a muscular shambling brawl of self-directed hatred. “Guillotine” has a brash, Meatwound-esque, snaky groove, that I keep expecting an alligator or a sewer mutant to leap out of and rip my face off. “Predator and Prey” rages against the military’s predatory recruiting practices with prowling Biohazard inspired thrash riffs. “Reality Tunnel” has a constricting groove wrapped around a merciless beat, shot through with crisscrossing shards of feedback. “Nice Guy” is Jesus Lizard crawl down to the basement to tell you to shut your god damned mouth about how no one wants to f*ck you, because there is frankly more to life and no one owes you sex chief. Chapel Perilous” is a double-time death-dealer, and if I had one complaint about the record, it’s that more tracks do not sound as unhinged as it does. Lastly, “Perception is Gamble” has a loose and calamitous Botch meets Fear feel, and remains compelling for its entire run time despite being an instrumental track. The whole album clocks in at under thirty minutes, but frankly, it feels like it’s over in a flash, leaving me no choice to start over at the top to get another dose.

Grab a copy from Thill Jockey here.