A recent vinyl reissue (one of a couple) from L7, a band that in my book didn't get the street cred that they deserved. Much like Babes In Toyland, the "all-girl band" novelty was total bullshit; I mean, Christ, it had already been well over a decade since The Runaways dropped their "Bomb" on the public? I suspect it was that marketing aspect and the "grunge" label that was hung around the band's collective neck that led many listeners to either avoid or outright dismiss L7's music, even though what they were doing was completely in line with the early 90s noise-rock underground. These women just managed to grab hold of that early 90s " alternative / punk /grunge" wave and rode it for as long as they could, assisted by the strength and simplicity of their hooks and songs, and the visual style and confrontational attitude of the band (especially singer / guitarist Donita Sparks). But make no mistake, L7 were a straight-up sludge / noise rock outfit. And when you really start to dig into the catalog of L7's music, it's both surprisingly heavy 9I mean heavy) and abrasive, and also unexpectedly experimental.

Hungry For Stink . for a sophomore release on a major label, is a gargantuan ass-kicker. Snotty, bulldozing tunes like "Andres", "Baggage", are stripped-down metalpunk crunchers that mine a similar streak of caveman crush as some of The Melvins' stuff. Wailing, brain-damaged guitar solos, the triple-threat vocals from Jennifer Finch, Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks, the bludgeoning power-pop-gone-bad hooks in these songs are ugly, catchy, and massive enough to flatten your head. The parts on songs like "Baggage " where the already-crushing metallic riffs suddenly slow down even further into a tarpit of slo-mo veaviosity are just ridiculous. Those guitars get completely wrecked, with tinny, ultra-trebly leads cutting through like concertina wire, or the tone suddenly spoils into an out-of-tune mess of garbled sludge. But goddamn, can they bang out a hummable tune; have you ever wondered what it would sound like if the Runaways covered a Melvins song (or maybe the other way around)? Well, that's what you get with "Can I Run", in all of its feeback-screeching glory. Likewise, "Riding With A Movie Star" jams in some Hammond-esque organ, hand claps and zany xylophone for an upbeat beach blanket bonecrusher. Faster songs like "The Bomb" and "Freak Magnet" unleash raw wah-pedal fury and chunky hardcore riffs coated in spit and lead; the slimy psychedelia of "Questioning My Sanity" and "She Has Eyes" blow apart on their funkier, blues-damaged stompers, and "Stuck Here Again"'s shambling rock peels off its skin to reveal underlying depression. Screaming guitar noise and severe fretboard abuse and hammered amplifiers and weird electronic noises abound. Sparks has one of the most distinctive yowls in all of rockdom, her bratty sneer sort of resembling a feminine Jello Biafra at times. "Shirley" is a quick-tempo ripper that pays homage to pioneering drag racer Shirley Muldowney, while the cover of " Fuel My Fire" (originally by Aussie punkers Cosmic Psychos) turns into grinding buzzsaw bubblegum aggression. Fucking awesome. It wraps with the filthy, sludgy existential dread of "Talk Box", using the titular device to produce some incredibly disturbing and inhuman sounds.

For those that haven't heard the band in an age, these albums are totally worth checking out if you're a fan of the sludge rock / Amphetamine Reptile / noise rock - the ladies banged out some serious heavy and noxious sludge-rock that almost matches what bands like Unsane, Melvins, and Killdozer were putting out there at the same time.