The cover art for this excellent split cassette of two Vancouver bands appropriates the manly Doc-Martens-in-yer-face motif from the cover of the album of the same title by New York hardcore giants Agnostic Front. To my trained reviewer’s eye, this shouts: SERIOUS IRONY AND WEIRDNESS. The Hermit side, “Pirate Utopia,” is a long noisefest that begins with minimal, percussive thumping reminiscent of Dutch anarcho- punks The Ex and develops into choice lo-fi mindfuckery, including much howling tape feedback and some sampling from some kinda British B-list science-fiction like Quatermass or something… The X in Sex side is, uh, quite nutty – being devoted to frantic covers of 80’s tunes. Songs like “Shout at the Devil” and Herbie Hancock’s immortal “Axel F” are given relatively straight-up treatments, lo-fi-ness and screaming notwithstanding; X in S’s version of “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” rocks my world, from its bloobly Casiotone beginning to the burst of chaos that erupts halfway through the first verse, tapering off with the theme from The Simpsons. I sense the heavy influence of John Zorn or (more likely) Victoria hardcore maniacs Mexican Power Authority at work here … and, as a matter of fact, Mexican Power’s Jason Flowers recorded the tape’s Hermit side, and the folks who distribute this cassette also have a Mexican Power cassette available – as well as a couple of other Hermit tapes and noisecore from Ecuador, among other things. You will not find stuff like this anywhere else — check it.
Title: Live at CBGB / Format: cassette / $4 US, post-paid / Pulp Mill Records, 5410 Bergen-op-zoom, Nanaimo, B.C., V9T 2M2