Hugs - the Tarpit - LP
Pressing: 525 Green Vinyl
Tracklisting
01. Some Great American West
02. Who's On First, Who's On Second
03. Part 1: The Young Corporate
04. Jesus Nike Brad Pitt Hard On
05. Glacier
06. Run
07. Lost In The Wilderness
08. Mike Witry Was A Good Kid
09. The Deep World
10. Run!
11. A Shiv For The Immortals
12. Part 2: Overthrow Of The Boy's Club
13. Untitled And Self Improvement
Review By Derek Black
taken from vivalavinyl.org
Hugs deserve hugs, high fives, burritos, and 7"s (things all these guys love as far as i know) for the things these kids all do with their lives. So, if you are ever lucky enough to see this band, shower them with these things. The Tarpit is a record that seemingly embodies the hearts and souls of everything within these four sweet Iowa boys. Wildy passionate, imaginative, sincere, good intentioned, thinking, feeling people have come together to make a record which immediately reflects such spirits. The lyrics full of positive, idealistic messages are well thought out, and make for a good read alone outside of the context of any sort of musical recording, but when you combine these with the intensly heartfelt delivery, and the off-kilter tilt-a-whirl styled post-hardcore jammings of this band, you get quiet an incredible amalgamation. The music on this is really interesting, which is typical of landlocked midwestern bands with no coastal trends to pay tribute to. You can tell it draws from many different influences, which maybe the only negative thing about this record. Sometimes things are too busy to really tell what's going on. It's sort of like if The Assistant listened to more ZZ Top instead of Judas Priest. Out and out metal riffs are declined in favor of the occaisional big rock sounding guitar in the background. The Tarpit is a clusterfuck of nasal guitar fills, bumpin' basslines, piled ontop of late 90's styled hardcore song structure and traditional punk rock delivery. Does that sound like a handful to deal with? For those of you wanting me to cut to the chase already, I'll do it. Hugs music is for fans of bands like Song of Zarathustra, Harriet the Spy, Pageninetynine, Books Lie, and Off Minor. The Tarpit is definitely worth your while, and you'll play it's 13 songs over and over again all day once you get it.