FLEA COLLAR - "FLEA COLLAR" LP

LULUS: Cretinous strain inhaled. Schizoid dose shot. Stand up if you can. Lay down if you dare. Woof. The immature genius of once-prodigy-now-prophet Brandon Gaffney (Brown Sugar, Cement Shoes, Woodstock '99) once again is cut into wax for you to get your head around. He seems to infect everyone around him with terminal sarcasm and a perhaps unrelated courage to do whatever the hell they want on a record. But what can I say? The kid can play. He can also step into any shoes. Demonstration: Track 3 sounds like a 50/50 hybrid of Motörhead's eponymous ode-to-self and Eddy Current's "You Let Me Be Honest With You", while the very next track might as well be an offcut by Cleveland's infamous The Inmates - des-cus-tin manic slop that apparently is only able to breed itself in Ohio. Other songs sound like early era Dinosaur Jr (or Deep Wound, or Witch) with one of the NYC/Toxic State throats on the mic.

S(L)ick guitar, bizzy riddim and teenage mutant sewer system vocals seem to be the real name of the game here. Whatever it takes to make you feel uneasy while filling your ears with snot drool that infects. Flea Collar is a punck virus. It starts at the cochlear, moves down through the chest and to the extremities until finally it gets comfy, using your brain as a couch while it pees all over the place and sticks forks in your sockets. So if you wanna get weird, Flear Collar are ready when you are.

FEEL IT: In yet another beer-fueled entry to Cleveland's storied rock'n'roll lineage, Flea Collar step up to the plate and smash home nine hits on their self-titled debut album. The Rustbelt gang of four (affectionately known as Spot, Sparky, Cookie, and Blitz) have spent the past decade'n'change honing their collective chops in groups like Bad Noids, Brown Sugar, Spike Pit, and Woodstock '99. Anywho, since their inception as Flea Collar with 2021's 'A Hole Is A Hole' on Tetryon Tapes, the gang landed at Rumpus Room Recording with Poopy Necröpondé (Sockeye) engineering their full length effort. Whether your opinion of Cleveland leans more towards r'n'r mecca or mistake on the lake, there's clearly something in the water supply and BOY, is it baked into what Flea Collar have created across these twenty-six odd minutes. Taking cues from the Non-Commercial side of CLE punk, British heavy metal, Japanese hardcore insanity, and good old fashioned Midwest rock'n'roll - Flea Collar have turned in an epic debut that lands somewhere between tongue-in-cheek & the impending dog bite illustrated on the front cover. Where this album fits into the utterly confounding cesspool of twenty-twenties culture is a coin toss, but the true heads out there may just GET IT. Flea Collar fucking rules!