CHERUBS "Immaculada High"

CHERUBS

"Immaculada High"

These CHERUBS are neither chubby nor cheerful. Rather they are extremely loud and abrasive and have been that way since rising out of Texas in 1991.This tinnitus-inducing trio have been leaders in the noise rock movement since its inception and "Immaculada High" (sounds like a Catholic high school purgatory) is yet another assault of super scratchy guitar squall, yelping yowls and yowling yelps, and general sonic mayhem.

Although extremely loud and rough guitar sounds are the backbone of CHERUBS, this could never be called a metal band. They don't have any of that classical metal structure or any metal tropes. Punk rock, though, I could see a definite connection to. Although like many of the noise rockers coming from the early 90's, they aren't typical punk either. These guys make a hellacious racket from the jump and every tune here is saturated in feedback. The tone is loose and sloppy and ready to fly off the hinges any second. It all has an extremely organic analog sound...the drums are dry and aggressive, the bass oozes and slithers throughout. Strangely enough, there is often an underlying poppy feeling of catchiness to CHERUBS' music, but it is submerged in layers of grime and noise.

Tracks vary from short, sharp blasts of fury like "Turista", "Old Mother Shoe" and "Pacemaker" to longer, more syrupy and more psychedelic sounding drones such as "IMCG". "Breath U can C" and "Nobodies". The longer cuts are definitely more experimental and play around with tons of tones and effects. There's almost a 60's-ish kind of feel to those. On every cut, Kevin Whitley uncorks high pitched yells and hollaring that make him sound one McNugget short of a happy meal. Which, when looking at song titles like "Sooey Pig" and "Tigers In The Sky", I guess he is.

Once again, don't confuse this with heavy metal at all. But when it comes to abrasive noise rock, CHERUBS don't give up an inch.

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