Stuck firmly in a time warp of their own making, Brisbane’s The Stinkbugs make music that bears no relation to anything you’ll hear on mainstream radio or oh-so-limp reality TV shows. Fuzzy ’n’ frothy, psychedelic garage rock is their stock in trade. Bass-man Tiger Bug’s vocal plaintively cajoles and pleads with lapses into occasional throat-shredding howls, while Mantis coaxes rivers of fuzz from his guitar and its modest array of homemade pedals. There’s a bit of instrument swapping between the pair. Guest theremin and keys embellishment what’s a pretty basic sound and Cactoblatis keeps the whole stew bubbling on drums.
Part early Stooges, part Green Fuzz or latter-day Blue Cheer, “Infestation” swings from the heavy pop-rock of “Jenny” to the downright abrasive “All Of Time” - and that’s just on the first side (yes, it’s an LP.)
There was a time (at least in Sydney) when this sort of music was de rigeur in small and smelly pubs, from the Sutho Royal to the Time & Tide. It was like the musically inclined had picked at a scab and exposed the festering sore of acid punk, freak-beat and primitive rock
“Woman On The Hill” opens side two with the fuzziest track on the album and side B is where fans of distortion will spend the most time. Nothing succeeds like excess and songs like “Birds & Bees Do” and “The Bear” take things to the next (lower) level. Sonic purists will squirm but the rest of us will smile, knowingly, at their discomfort.
It’s almost a drawback that it’s not on CD because the last two tracks (“Infestation” and “Bugopalypse”) are the ones you’d sequence to play at the start of the second side. A pigeon pair of noise-fests, they’ll encourage you to drop the needle back at the start, which can’t be a bad thing.
Don't play it near babies or elderly relatives (unless you're in the latter's will.)
