I have a weird affinity for what Kids Born Wrong are doing on their album Book of Vile Darkness. When I was going through my pop punk phase in college, in addition to the Ergs and Teenage Bottlerocket, I would listen to an excessive amount of freaky garage rock and country-rock hybrids. Specific, I know, but that's also kind of what was around in WI/MN/rural IL/etc... in the '00s. Kids Born Wrong remind me a lot of those groups. An extremely strange and distinct combination of powerpop and freaky hill-billy music. Grease-smeared and dirt-loving, woodshed rock, that lands somewhere between The Hellacopters, Hasil Adkins and freaking Green Jellÿ. Bands who tried to put their own spin on Rust Never Sleeps and ended up sounding like Nashville Pussy and opening for Zeke when they blew through their nowhere town. What I'm trying to say, is that Book of Vile Darkness is a weird album, from a weird band, that fits a fucking great tradition of weird underground bands, and I am sold on it like a tall can of domestic lager at a rodeo. I like the surfy boot-scoot of "The Googies," I dig the hyper-speed, b-grade, backwoods cruiser "Mermaid Blues," I'm into the campy, snuff-fest stomp of the almost unforgivably perverse "Killed On Video," and I'm pleasantly shocked and awed by "Drain The Blood Of The Goat Whore" which sounds like it could be the theme for an indie stoner/slasher flick directed by a Rob Zombie protege. The wackier stuff is front-loaded, while the later half of the record starts to sound like a genuine alternative country outing, demonstrating some love for the Bloodshot era of the genre on "Gibbering Mouther" and "Bury Me Someplace Bad And Ugly," songs that pair wondering angst and examinations of internal unravelings with razored takes on folk rhythms and hang-wringing, salt-of-the-earth melodies. It doesn't take the band long to change lanes again though, as they proceed to dive headfirst into alternative rock territory on the second to last track, the moppy but muscular and dissonantly distorted "Full Of Bugs," and circle back for some weird-ass, Hills Have Eyes rockabilly on closer "We're All Going To Die Down Here." Book of Vile Darkness is outrageous, fun, and full of variety, and will definitely be a bit of a time warp if you're like me and frequented a lot of exurban DIY shows at pool halls and shitty bars during the Bush years.
Served up by What's For Breakfast? Records
