These guys aren't fooling anyone, least of all themselves. That's why they've stuck together for more than ten years, I'm sure; because the crowd doesn't exactly part down the middle for this type of stuff anymore. At least, together and still "truckin'," this Boise trio can travel the country plugging in and rocking out, sharing joints, beers, and stories about playing with Built to Spill. On their own they'd be, well: they'd be J Mascis.
So dig this crazy tripped out mindfuck: Caustic Resin find a way to strip the splinters away from Pink Floyd, Neil Young, and Dinosaur Jr and drive them into your ears with unabashed relentlessness and seeming disregard for cohesion, melody, or any discernible eye for restraint. Sometimes, as in the opening moments of "Wizard of the Upper Snake River", you get a little taste of the mid 90s in its anthemic tone and undulating dynamics (at best a loose echo of Modest Mouse at their most digressive and angst-led moments), but this is as current as it gets-- not to mention as palatable.
The opening two tracks immediately go about harshing my mellow with abrasive guitar romps, open-ended song structures, and spacy freak-out psychedelia. Netson's vocals are of the Axl/Wayne Coyne hybrid variety, only sans any semblance of charm or melody. "Fry Like Ace Jones" chills out the mix a bit, but the band's patience quickly wanes, and over the next three tracks, we're subjected to nearly thirty minutes of impenetrable crunch and burn reverb, guitar solos, and feedback. The whole mess, laced with pleas to "Keep freakin'/ Keep on freakin' out," amounts to a suffocating Wall of displaced apathetic aggression and slacker languishment.
Some of the darker moments sound a bit like Tool on GHB-- dense, stomping, and maniacal, but with sloppy undertones of ambivalence constantly pulling the bottom out from underneath them. The entire affair, for as heavy handed and metallic it is, washes clean and leaves no mark. You'd think the enlistment of Phil Ek and a return to Go would stifle their recidivist crimes, but Caustic Resin are too unaffected and backward-looking to care. This is unapologetic, hazy-eyed, shirtless bar-rock at its most vulnerable, so don't come looking for a fight-- you'll just leave with stinging eyes, ringing ears and no memory of what brought you there in the first place. Which, given what went down inside, is a good thing.
