I think the first band was named after a medical condition you get after you eat Taco Bell with their packets of fire sauce (which, by the way, is well worth the pain). Flamin’ Anus sound an awful lot like old AFI. You know, the band that used to be a punk band till the lead singer had some identity crisis and did LSD while fucking a goth chick, or something like that. Well, this sounds like the good AFI from their first two albums with a touch more rock’n’roll to it. The singer, Charley Smith, sounds almost exactly like the confused Mr. Havok. Hell, they even have a song called “Identity Crisis.” My suggestion would be to have the singer from Anus and the musicians from AFI get together and pick up where Very Proud of Ya left off. Enough of that. The second band, Hybrid Mutants, are pretty different. They have a kinda southern rock’n’roll punk sound to them. Light on the southern but it’s there. Not a bad sound. Kinda like Nashville Pussy with a little Stool Sample mixed in. They are a little disappointing on their cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” You can actually understand every single word clearly. Whatkindacrap?! Anyway, the two bands offer a decent contrast to each others sound. You get 7 songs a piece. It’s worth checking out for the Flamin’Anus/AFI comparison.
–toby (Transparent)