Tobacco - Maniac Meat Album Review

For www.catchthesonics.com

By Ryan Pilot

Meat is the word. This record is thickly layered with meaty, big, dirty synth sounds. Deep, distorted, motorised whirrings grate across the entire album like speeding cars, driven by big, gritty hip-hop beats.

‘Maniac Meat’ follows Tobacco’s 2006 debut album Fucked Up Friends and it grinds straight into life in fifth gear, with ‘Constellation Dirtbike Headache.’ Rumbling, distorted rock ‘n’ roll bass and a synthesised motor melt into modulated, laid back vocals over trashy drums and you are instantly seduced by the lead synth hook. You can hear the dirtbike revving throughout, which somehow comes out of a human mouth midway through.

Guest vocalist Beck reels through imagery on ‘Fresh Hex,’ like experimental Jewish hip-hoppers Clouddead. He flows over hip-hop beats and synth bleeps that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of electronica twiddler Clarke’s records.

‘Mexican Icecream’ offers a creepy juxtaposition between angelic, childlike “do do dos” and Ladytronesque harmonised, male vocals worshipping the Sabbath, singing, “You are the favourite day / I’ll bring the sun to you,” over an electro beat. ‘Sweatmother,’ a sparser affair than the rest, refreshes the ears with high pitched high hats, 90s power-rock drums and whispered vocals to a Robot Rock-style guitar riff.

‘Unholy Demon Rhythms’ pumps some life back into the album, after a brief lull, with a drum fill. The bass drum rumbles like the Devil’s stomach ache while the tom-tom whips like the Devil’s spitting as deep detuned synths claw their way upwards from hell.

On ‘TV All Greasy,’ the rushed, clumsy kick drum beats like an irregular heartbeat, laced with stressed out synths. ‘Creepy Phone Calls’ concludes the album, a ghostly hook drops in unexpected and demands you pay attention. A real stand-out track, it sounds like The Stone Roses being playfully abused by a bored digital demon-kitten.

Tobacco has created a creepy, catchy, glitchy, filthy violent attack of a record which delights and stimulates the ear and confuses the pulse.