Oh, the glory of the vinyl medium lends itself well to the HFOS mania. There’s something comforting and eerie about these guys. It’s like visiting older musical neighborhoods – like those inhabited by the old Dwarves and the well-missed Mummies – but HFOS are the newest, more demented kids playing in the rubble of the long-ago destroyed landscape. Nothing should grow there. Everything should rot and decay and give up and die. But from the ashes and poisonous rainwater sprout four black-bandaged Swedes with radioactive fluids coursing through their veins. Grayed wickedness in their softened brains. Viruses and plagues and their fingertips and in their throats. The antidote to any “Employee of the Week,” a rabid, mistreated Dachshund to the balls of all the bands too busy stretching for the brass ring to notice before teeth are clamped on tight. It’s downright a comfort to hear such fight, fuck, fight, fuck me, fuck you, fuck us all on record. Do the math of twenty-five songs on an LP and you know they don’t dick around. Yep, recommended.
–todd (Raw Deluxe)