Jungle Juice: Bastard Sessions

Jungle Juice! A band that I cannot and will not stop listening to! I have been hooked on “Bastard Sessions” for weeks. When I get the urge to listen to this album, I imagine it to be something like the urge a junkie must have craving for their fix; I race to my stereo and insert the album and so eagerly anticipate for the first few seconds to come into my ears, so that I may “get off” so to speak and enjoy my fix.

This is a band whom I personally think can be enjoyed by fans of all sorts of heavy-styled music genres. However, I hear hints of Void, Black Flag, Rwake, Eyehategod, Siege, Capitalist Casualties, and most apparent of their influence I would have to say is Crossed Out in the sense of the rapid change from blast-beat to sludge groove. Very heavy stuff! I always hate comparing bands to other bands, especially in this since this band really does not have a particular sound to specify their style with. On the bastard sessions particularly, you’ll find the catchiest groove that will leave you with a strong urge to get up and start skank dancing, doomy riffs heavily-laden with walls of feedback, vocals that seem to come more from heart, soul, and throat as opposed to actual vocal chords, and beats blasted over riffs that seem to give the blasts a mighty groove instead of the normal powerviolence-styled fast as humanly possible attitude. All this mixed into one sound makes on hell of a style to say the very least, this becomes quite obvious to the listener once they become captivated by this extravagantly raw style.

I can’t really select tracks on this album that particularly stand out compared to the rest as they are all so great! Since the first two songs of this EP “Infect” and “Social epidemic”, which are bridged into one track now have a music video I highly recommend checking that out. The music video shows clips from shows they have done. I have personally seen these guys live and they are by far one of the most intense bands I’ve ever encountered up close. If you want to get a tease of that sort of experience, watch the video for “Infect” and “Social Epidemic” Youtube. Every song on this album absolutely smashes your face! While we’re on the subject of every song smashing faces, raping minds, and overwhelming the listener to get up and skank around in whatever room they might be in and break as much consumerist paraphernalia in it as possible, almost every song they have recorded can be downloaded and streamed at their page on Bandcamp.

I’d go into more detail here about this band, their music in general, and the “Bastard Sessions EP” which I’m particularly reviewing here, but the simple fact is I’ve been hooked on it for weeks and the best piece of information I can honestly give on this EP and band is to plain and simply just listen to them. It’s intense, extremely energetic, original if not innovating, and in my opinion one of the most classic, original, and stand-out recordings ever to be classified as powerviolence. Just go listen to it… Now!