Broadzilla has trashy fun on new release

The guitars are all crunchy and the bass zooms along, just like you'd expect from arena rock. It must be something about the water supply, because bands from the area have been enamored with the sound for an abnormally long time. Relatedly, having a singer who sounds like Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland must mean Broadzilla's been drinking some agua bottled near Minneapolis.

The band is at their best when they're not taking themselves too seriously. For example, "White Trash Mom" includes the following comment about the titular relative: "She gets her perm at Fantastic Sam's." How could you more concisely capture the Wal-Mart aesthetic? Maybe with the line "She works at Citgo for some extra cash."

Then of course there's the song "Cum Guzzlin Whore," sounding for all the world like a Gwar/Huggy Bear project. Lines like "Pull out your dick/And she'll suck it/ Fuck in her/ It's like fuckin' a bucket" are silly and entertaining. The band does occasionally go too far into the cheese territory with lines seemingly designed to play into their audience's bad habits, like "You spend your time suckin' cock, I'll spend my time smokin' pot."

Whenever the band tries to write just some straight ahead song, it comes off as mundane. "Soul Searching" is both lyrically dead and musically stultifying with a style of chorus so cliched it could've been written by a music journalist.

When Broadzilla is fun, it's a blast; when Broadzilla isn't being fun, it's just some band in a bar you're trying to ignore but can't because they're playing so loudly. Fortunately, CD players let you skip around.

11-09-99