The Fucking Champs : VI

A whole lot of medieval imagery, settings and scenarios from stories written by the likes H.P. Lovecraft are what fly into my head when it comes to doom metal. I always associated the sword as the one true weapon that symbolizes thrash metal. After all, thrash metal slices right through with quick precision with edges that open up and disembowel anything within its path. Yet if San Fran trio the Fucking Champs were a weapon, VI would render them as a falcata, a sword made by the Romans mixed with designs that they stole from the Celtic people and the Spaniards. So heavy that it must be held in a chopping fashion instead of a side-to-side blow, the Fucking Champs do just that with Tim Green’s sun baked guitar riffs that hack through every song with just the right force.

Adhering to an instrumental strand of metal with a Middle Ages influence, the Fucking Champs flog through on the respective openers of “The Loge” and “Abide With Me” and bring out a feel of the Bay Area thrash heads from the mid to late ’80s, who were listening to bands that obviously influenced the Fucking Champs while skating on Powell Peralta decks and wearing an early designed pair of Airwalks on their feet and Vision Street Wear t-shirts with cut off sleeves. Other tunes like the somewhat twangy “Fozzy Goes to Africa” were made for drinking those 22 oz. cans of cheap ass beer in the blistering sun all day long in the summer with no other source of hydration in your body only to reach that climatic feel where the combination of the rays and the brew make your head feel like it’s been broiling. “Insomnia” on the other hand is a cerebral Krautrock haze ala early Tangerine Dream.

For some reason the Fucking Champs have always been one of those metal bands with mucho cred among the indie kids, which is probably owed to their freaky Renaissance Fair like experimentation complete with some flute action on “Dolores Park.” The sound is overall congealed but really loud making VI an album that will appeal to the likes of the kids in the Dungeons and Dragons club as well as the juiceheads in the varsity letter jackets that shove them into lockers (i.e. editor Jeff Terich).

Similar Albums:
Drunk Horse – Drunk Horse
Kyuss – Welcome to Sky Valley
Earthless – Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky

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