Fat History Month - A Gorilla 7”

Fat History Month is a Boston group that seemingly enjoy gracing their album covers with crudely drawn sketches of odd things. This single in particular, as you can see, features a sketch of a gorilla. I haven’t had the chance to hear their latest album Fucking Despair yet, but from what I’ve seen it features a bizarre sketch of a pear with a penis hanging off of it. Yep. In what seems like an effort to match these sketches, their music is an equally crude/rough and often slow moving style of indie-rock. Really these guys sound like a number of bands that could have come out of the Louisville or Pittsburgh scenes in the 90’s. That’s not necessarily a knock on them, as lord knows I’m certainly a huge backer of a number of those.

I’ve heard the previous album that came out in like ‘08/’09 from these fellas before and actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The tracks for this single, A Gorilla, happened to be recorded around the same time, which would make sense as to why I am sort of digging what I hear on this. Again, I haven’t heard their most recent full-length, but it’s becoming more apparent with each listen of this single that I should probably take a listen. But focusing on this set of tracks, the a-side contains a couple tunes that are both pretty similar in their approach. Each one kind of venturing into drony indie-rock territory, blurring where riffs and melodies might actually emerge. However, this is the aspect of the band that I find myself really enjoying. The slower build to a more damaged tumble of guitar mess that kind of caps each of these tracks. People seem to be gravitating towards the song on the b-side “Heart Takes Beating” for its more direct take, and really it sounds too much like a Modest Mouse outtake for my tastes. The song sort of redeems itself though with its garage like roughness and the toned down moodier outro. They finish off the single with an untitled instrumental track that dives back into the slower drawn out post-rock that filled the a-side. In the end I’m kind of split on this one. Dig the two tracks on the a-side, but not too warm for either on the flip. However, looking at it I’d say that’s not too bad for a small batch of leftovers from 3 or so years ago. Look forward to seeking out their new LP.

Fat History Month – B (stream)

Anyone looking to pick up this single can do so by hitting up Sweaters & Pearls Records, which is ran by Jason who also does the solid 7 Inches blog.