MUSK

“I've done a pretty terrible job this year of preparing for any kind of "Shake Appeal's Favorite Albums of 2014" list but I'll say without hesitation that MUSK's new one has a spot somewhere on that hypothetical list. The Oakland band's album is beefy, sludgy blues rock that's so vicious and heavy, it makes Lazaretto and Turn Blue seem outright feeble. Engineering master Chris Woodhouse (credits include several Ty Segall, Oh Sees, and Fuzz records) was behind the boards to help wrangle this band's thick'n'scuzzy low end, and there are some fantastic hooks beneath that mass of fuzz, too.”
-Evan Minsker, PITCHFORK - Pitchfork

There's the blues. There's also blues-rock, blues-rawk, blues-punk and, of course, the blooze. Then there's something that is much more sinister, foreboding and scary as hell. Something that may have the blues as a steady part of their diet but like water, it is just the base ingredient. Bands like the Birthday Party, the Laughing Hyenas and Chrome Cranks huffed and guzzled such concoctions in the past and California's Musk have figured out the formula for themselves too.
After what sounds like a circus being run of out town and over a cliff by spaceships on opener "The Hidden Cost" a murder spree starts with "Wet Brain." Full of serrated guitars alternate between recklessly sawing away at tendons or blowing up a dam full of blood while a man possessed howls something that sounds somewhere between Lux Interior screaming for dear life and a snake charming preacher drunk on a serpents venom, the song is where all kinds of creepy dreams begin.
Fuzz coated and mildew laden freak fest like "Raw Night" and the drunks fist flying boogie of "Hip Pain" come barreling out like a runaway train loaded with a raw sewage payload, smashing everything in its path. Meanwhile, a panicky "Catch And Release" kicks rockabilly music in the head with a work boot and tangles your worthless soul into a slimy and sticky web of spidery guitar lines.
When it seems the band might play it a bit straight things are still messed up. "Weathervane" may remind some ears of Neil Young and Crazy Horse but after a minute or so in it's more like them being tied together at the ankles and then dragged alive behind the hearse that Neil wrote "Long May You Run" about. When they do a take on the Paul Anka song "Crazy Love" it sounds more like a murderer making a non remorseful but disturbing confession and their version of The Savages "The World Ain't Round (It's Square)" takes the teenage snot and rage of the 1960's original and drops into the even more brutal and bitter modern world.
The first Musk album blew my head off. For this second go round they have decided to stomp on the grey matter and kick the bloody parts all over the walls and window. - Smashin' Transisitors

In October, Oakland brawn-punk outfit, Musk, unleashed their self-titled debut album on Holy Mountain, and it calls to migrained mind the most fevered furiosos of the early ’90s Amphetamine Reptile catalog, sprung not from the darkest corners of the grunge wave but sprung today from the crunchiest caverns of the left coast garage scene. Though engineered by Oakland scene knob-turner, Chris Woodhouse, Musk is way more severe than any of the Thee Seagall Burger batch. Way, way more severe. Gargatuan, flailing drums, ever-warbling fuzz-riffs, and singer Rob Fletcher with one of those screams where you wonder how long it can survive. Well it survives and goes on to fight another day song after song on the album. And they know how to step up, suckerclock you, and get out, never dragging tunes to spent proportions. It’s one of the best debuts of the year. And today the band premiered a new video for the (apropos) Chrome Cranks cover, “Drag House.” Check it out below, and expect more of your most eardrum-burned friends to say, “Man, have you heard that Musk band?!” soon. - CMJ