Meth Mountain - "Monotony" - Lunchbox/Made In Kansas

Full disclosure: I was in this band when it started, but only played on a demo tape and wasn’t a part of this record at all.
Meth Mountain was about as solid of a local band as you could ask for in a medium sized city. They played fun punk, people “went off”, and were more than good enough to play with any touring bands coming through town. There was a demo before this 7”, and there was a tape after this 7”, but this record is the only thing that exists of this band on wax. “The Regulators”, the first song on this three-song ep is very obviously playing into the well travelled, though rarely executed path of the Swedes. The Vicious and Masshysteri I’m sure were no secret to the guitar player when he was writing the (very good) riffs for both songs on the first side. The title song, “Monotony”, is much more rooted in the “My War B-Side” camp of bands that, while well executed, tend to blend together into one giant ball of Gregg Ginn masturbatory hairball. I think the song is cool, and their use of stereo guitars is pretty great (seeing it live was awesome as well), but big chunks of this long song are completely forgettable. The parts that are good on this song are GREAT. The entire middle section of the song is one of these, and I find myself listening to this side just for that bit of song. The vocals on “Monotony” are awesome, but at the end of the day, I would have much preferred a Robert Pettersson to a Rollins for this record. There are points of the songs where having an actual punk singer instead of a hardcore voice would have made it an entire different record, so maybe I’m happy that they went with Josh instead of trying to find a voice.

Meth Mountain was an awesome band, and this record is a TOTAL FUCKING DOLLAR BIN RIPPER!