Bullet LaVolta: The Gift

Bullet LaVolta: The Gift

1989

Taang! Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. X-Fire  2. Little Tiny Pieces  3. Mother Messiah  4.Chalkdust  5.Sneer  6. Off Kilter  7. Underground Well  8. The Gift  9. One Room Down  10. Birth Of Death  11. Trapdoor



 This is a band that I always read about in beat-up issues of Thrasher and RIP magazine, but never got around to actually listening to...

I remember they had a pretty intense buzz going during the early 90's ( think someone from the Lenmonheads was in this band) but you don't really hear anything at all about them these days...

I was at Eastside Records about a year ago and there was a big crate of discounted $2.00 punk albums, so I was like, "Ah, well...Pretty cover...Maybe it's time to finally check these guys out" and brought it home...And it turns out it's a record I probably would have flipped out over back in '89-'92...It's oddly dated now, but I can't hold the slow, cruel passage of time against it...It's definitely punk-metal but not of a species that manged to survive and pass on its genes... The sound is midtempo Hardcore punk but with an odd hair-metal strut...So imagine if Fugazi busted out some George Lynch shredding from time to time with "VI"-era Keith Morris on the mic...Depending on where your allegiances lie, that description is either going to sound amazing to you or it's going to make you feel a bit queasy...

The only time the shred becomes redonkulous is on"Mother Messiah" where it just overwhelms any and all good-taste...But on the moody "Sneer" it manages to raise a fairly intriguing fog, so a little hairmetal isn't necessarily an inherently bad trait...The title track is a pretty catchy and cool hair-rocker for sure...The band is at its best though when they roll up their dang sleeves and lay down some brawny, melodic hardcore/hard rock..."X-Fire" and "Off Kilter" are just the sort of flat-out rocking that I was looking for as a teenager...God, can I have a Taang! order sent back to 1991, please? It really takes me back to a time when cool punk/metal releases were coming out left and right...

"I'm going to listen to punk/metal my whole life! Even when I'm a 40-year old man!"

Yea, literally the exact same ones because that genre either doesn't exist anymore or it looks like this...

Oh yea, be sure to check out the song "Underground Well," which has that particular brand of 80's "whoa oh ohhhh" punk that always gives me shivers...Gah! So good...

Yea, I'm totally on board with the early 90's critics here...This was some cool stuff...It took me at least one listen to make heads or tails of it, but on each subsequent spin it gets cooler and cooler...They do get a point deducted for the death metal belch on "Birth of Death," though...But if you're a punk who can stomach metal then this is going to make your day...However, if you're allergic to a little shred you might want to skip it...Shred away, I say...Shred, shred, shred away...

Here's  "Underground Well" by Bullet LaVolta...Enjoy...