Highlight/Review – So Stressed – Attracted to Open Mouths

What they say:

We’re from Sacramento, California. We play weird, noise rock/punk stuff using drums, guitar, keyboard/sampler, and voice. We’ve been doing that since 2010. We put out an album last year on cassette and as a digital download called Attracted To Open Mouths. It was later put out on CD by Music Ruins Lives.

What others say:

 This album goes all over the place, going from some really grinding noisy shit to a more emo punk feel at times. All of it is pretty rad.Favorite track: Little TV.
Noisey sad-vibes, the best kind of vibes imaginable. Favorite track: A Fisherman’s Feast.

What IHRTN says:
Adults – somewhat pointless intro – however, it doesn’t overstay its welcome at 0:46 2/5
A Fisherman’s Feast – vocals on that one remind me of Sharkey from Clockcleaner and overall (psychotic) atmosphere isn’t too far off either 4/5
Little TV – more melodic than the previous track – sometimes overtly so…to the point where only vocals save it from going completely into emo territory 3/5
Secret Breasts – decent rocker, but vocals are fairly non-descript and don’t really add all that much to the track 3/5
Animal Seeking Political Asylum – lovely stuff – if only they decided not to change tempos/rhythm so often 3/5
Hairstyles – Noise/skronk freakout – not bad if you’re into that sort of thing, but probably won’t get too many repeated plays due to overwhelming monotony of it 2/5
Molly – Starts out as a thrashfest a-la Melt-Banana, but then turns into grungy (hence the title?) kind of thing – wouldn’t mind it being a bit longer 3.5/5
The Astronomical Horse – Pretty much same as above, except that its 5 minutes long – starts out as a noisefest/thrashfest, but turns into a sludgefest a-la early Swans towards the end. I liked the last minute of it for some reason, but the rest wasn’t so impressive 3/5
IHRTN’s Conclusion:
As one of Bandcamp commenters pointed out – this is all over the place. Part noise/skronk, part sludge, part emo/screamo, “Attracted” sadly lacks focus. The only time that the band approaches anything that resembles complete/finished thing is on “Fisherman’s Feast”.
The rest seems like haphazard (though occasionally interesting) collection of ideas and sketches.
Overall rating: 3/5
 
Check out/buy the album here. Also – follow the band on Facebook.
 
What say you?