Paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of blotto

No album cuts cuz Metal Blade's gang of Patrick Batemans says nein.

Animals are blissfully ignorant of our gold star acid banging till we leave a pile of garbage on their house 'cause we if we know anything we know shit, and in the sun that motherfucker smells like civilization.

No wonder stray folks hither and tither self-medicate, murder.

The previous platter drunk from grindhouse Hammer teats. This latest treat is rotten Spahn ranch dressing, leaves ripped from mellow yellowing, vomit-pocked copies of Helter Skelter and Mindfuckers stashed under the seat with empty wrappers, undies. Opener Mt. Abraxas, contra the last first strike, climbs molasses slow, sand dune stumbling for a couple of warm beers and pocket change 'fore channeling God, i.e. Sabbath circa 1970-75, hypnosis wielded like a drugged wizard unable to just say nyet. And we've all taken turns as that Mind Crawler hammer, if not convincing someone to go all Tex Watson then certainly to fuck with the psyche of the ones we love, a word redefinable by the happy hour. Celebrate good times come on.

Jonesing for a blood lusty fix, Poison Apple b/w Under the Spell are a pair of Buck Blackmore rockin' holes in the sky metal pin punched by Desert Ceremony's active Iommi octaves oh so mesmer, and dig Uncle's eerie un/intentional Robin Zander Evil Love tribute complete with T.V. Eye submission and name-drop shout-out over Maiden/Priest axework.

The ante's high in Death Valley Blues, Marshall stack psych hiding from piggish sobriety along with the rest of the worded weirdos, anxiously kicking the on sale! today only! bobblehead down the road with the droning, lysergic Follow the Leader. The burnt So Cal concrete and dusty Chevy van monochrome of Valley of the Dolls is at first tab the only (slight) misfire, but patience, grasshopper. At last, at last, our crazy kids land a gig doing the Devil's Work, the knife blade broken garage rock endgame that, like every idea good bad or ugly, stutters to nothing under the bleaching sun.

This stack of oh yeah ain't a carbon copy of their oldies, yet there's blissfully none of the lobotomy promoted by onanist music critics,"maturing" -- c'est-à-dire, agitprop praising the sacrifice of The Holy Riff for "atmosphere" -- just one more thorny hike through one more nuclear-baked shithole. Play that funky music white boy and sing how every wasteland, whether gated Swiss bank silicone, upper lower middle class timebomb, or dumpster diver felony, is run by variations on a nutjob, as it was, is, and always shall be. Amen.