The Piranhas: Erotic Grit Movies

I am not sure how it will go over with the ILM mafia. The band is not hip, clever, ironic, or fashionable. The album is not the kind of thing that you can lay on your other music geek friends and boost your cred with your incredible discovery. In fact, it is the kind of record that I really would not share with my circle of friends because I do not think it would really speak to them.

The social aspect of music fandom aside, I love what they are doing. It is not that they are doing anything that is particularly novel or innovative; it just has some kind of moody sub-verbal edge. It strikes me as the kind of music that Iggy Pop described The Stooges as in the reissue liner notes to Raw Power, that they were not making literate intellectual music. It was raw war rock and roll for the loser set, people who drive rust-rockets, wear tight pants and work bad jobs.

I think what speaks to me is that there is a certain nihilism, complete ignorant bombastic rockism. It declares that idiot rock lunacy is the only thing that matters. I am not sure if I agree with the sentiment, but I appreciate the way they express it with such ferocious and single-minded fanaticism. It's the kind of American punk that would have happened before The Sex Pistol and The Ramones narrowed down the definition to three chord thrash pop. It is chaotic, they lose time, they play sloppy, they fall apart, and then it all crashes back together into blind maelstrom of pure drunken trash rock hate.

I think it is the intensity of it. Even when they break it down with The Great Glitter Nest, it never loses the tension. It invokes a mood; it is oppressive, claustrophobia, and all the other clichéd punk rock adjectives that you are supposed use in regards to raw rock and roll. It isn't nice, you cannot chill to it, it is not the soundtrack to a romantic evening, or pleasant mornings commute. It is just a pure blast of everything that is wrong. It is good because it so vigorously negative.

The songs flail, the bass lops around the drums, the organ screeches, punctuates, and drones. The guitars are not on the top of the mix, they sit somewhere in the middle. The sound is not the super compressed Marshall crunch that has marred so many guitar records in the last decade. It is a horrible treble screech that moves all over the song. The organ and guitar duel, they climb and descend in twisted lines, they stray from each other and then collide once again to reinforce one another.

The thing that makes this band novel is that the organ is really the instrument that stands above the rest. Although organ might be the focus of the mix, The Piranhas are rhythmically agile enough to trade roles often. They know when to build it up, and when to let if fall apart. They know that Rock is supposed to be danceable; they make sure to keep things jumping. The vibe might be bombastic idiot-energy horror, but they have put careful thought into their songs. The songs ain’t an accident; they know what they are doing.

Erotic Grit Movies is a short blast of negativity. The 12 tracks blast past and offer plenty of variation on the theme of mean and nasty rock and roll. The album does not offer much of a journey; it is more like a child playing in an abandoned house. In places there is fun and adventure, but there is still an underlying sense off discomfort and danger. This is not a record for pop sophisticates, indie-snobs, or dance aesthetes. It is an album for people who like their rock to be raw, tumultuous, and straight to the point. Erotic Grit Movies is the kind of rock record that would make Peter Laughner proud.