Harvey Milk – Life...The Best Game in Town[Hydra Head Records; 03/06/2008]
With so much music at our disposal there's bound to be times when you get knocked on your arse when in the pursuit of finding some new and ground breaking. This is one of those times. With their name deriving from the first San Franciscan gay politician, Harvey Milk (Creston Spiers; vocals, Stephen Turner; bass, Paul Tredeau; drums) are a wrecking ball that you dare to stand in front of. Forming in the early nineties, the band disbanded only to get back together in 2005. Life... The Best Game in Town is the band's second album after their re-form and their fifth overall to date.
The riff-o-rama gets your head spinning that much that it seems vertigo is on the way to cause some distress. 'Decades' is a vintage rock number that tumbles with a sludge aesthetic, with Spiers seemingly regurgitating fury and spitting it out like balls of fire. 'Motown' is a sheer stoner combat that would make Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins a proud man, while the sounds of the Jesus Lizard are only just a couple of streets away, too.
Although Harvey Milk seem to present their influences with a sense of boldness, the nature in which they expose extra facets of sound and ideas make this release all the more thrilling. 'Goodbye Blues' is a musical monolith, with top end snare smashing, sledge-hammer riffs and an overall wall of doom.
Yet another band that has fallen into the right hands. They've joined the ranks of fine modern alternative artists who dabble on the fringes of metal. Isis, Earth, Boris, Pelican and even Pissed Jeans. Harvey Milk can be added to this conclave of innovative music with Life...The Best Game in Town. One of the avant-garde metal releases of the year.
Lullaby Recommended
By Simon K
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