3 Bar Fire - Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game In Town

Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game In Town

Written by Wordmaster

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Learning about pseudo doom from friends can be very rewarding. Harvey Milk to me previously seemed like some kind of Scott Walker type figure of milk bottle hue who wailed about Christmas ghosts over an ambient backdrop of gamelan noodles. How wrong can one be?

As it happens Harvey Milk were a dirge cult inspiration back in 1994 and after reforming for the ‘Special Wishes’ album they realised that the lack of calcium congruent the listening public was experiencing needed a void plug; stat… And so ‘Life… The Best Game In Town’ was birthed.

10 jams deep it’s a fucking drunk behemoth of full thickness riffs that slowly grind themselves into a melee that’s well worth being patient and letting develop. Opener ‘Death Goes To The Winner’ fools you with its subtle guitar harmony suggestions before it swells in on itself and proceeds to wallow in its own slumped slow churning pace of sonic ugliness. A lot of the tracks on here are essentially filth… recorded at what feels like boiling point the drums pummel, the vocals rasp with a kind of metal mimicking integrity that seldom waivers and the guitars revel in that enhanced gain, downtuned quagmire they’re so comfortable dwelling in.

’Motown’ momentarily seems the Milk ditch the bruising mannerisms for a more sultry vocal harmony much like ‘Roses’ which almost whispers itself dry over piano loops before the long drawn out riff crunch of the low end oozing guitars reappears. Don’t expect complex harmony or melodies that’ll make you dizzy to deconstruct later in time from ‘Life… The Best Game In Town’ just swallow the brood and embrace the sludge fist that’s thumping you.

Werd.

Label: Hydra Head
Out: Now

www.myspace.com/harveymilk