KEELHAUL
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
HYDRAHEAD

LINKS:
keelhaul.info

Okay, so my first thought when I put this into my CD player was that somebody goofed and sent me a CD of their band’s rehearsal instead of the album. So I had to go back and look at the packaging. Nope. It was certainly an official release.
What it sounds like: 1) some of the sludgy jam bands I used to listen to in high school when I was extremely stoned, 2) an existential version of sludgy avant-garde thrash jazz, 3) a very bad imitation of The Melvins. Please don’t make me go on. I’ve listened to the thing about 10 times, at all different times of the day, and in all different moods….and I still feel the same about it. The only song I even remotely liked was “Shackleton.” And I’m being polite in saying that much.
So why did I listen to it so many times, then? Because Derrick Green from Sepultura said it was a band he’d like to play with. And I thought I’d missed something the first 10 times I heard it. Man, was I wrong. I still don’t get it.

 

----Christine Natanael