Just to give everybody involved the benefit of the doubt, one has to speculate that the Peppermints must be an absolutely devastating live act. Otherwise it's difficult to fathom what (besides sheer devoted friendship) might've prompted the Animal Collective to release the miserably shoddy trash-punk of Jesüs Chryst on their usually reliable Paw Tracks imprint.
Though the label is clearly no stranger to unkempt, lo-fi recordings, there is none of the Animal Collective's beatific tribalism or even the homely charm of Ariel Pink's warped outsider pop on Jesüs Chryst. Instead the Peppermints specialize in a deliberately amateurish, almost quaintly anachronistic form of self-described "barfy" DIY punk that sounds gorged on G.G. Allin and Killed by Death comps. And though there's nothing inherently wrong with that, there's likewise nothing offered on this album that suggests the group has either the ability or the inclination to sculpt their slapdash rawk into anything innovative or distinctive.
Originally assembled in the San Diego area in 1997, the quartet of Lil G'Broagfran, M. Ron Hubbard, Grim Graham, and Ms. Hot Chocolate have not wasted any time in the intervening years doing anything as pedestrian as honing their songcraft or rehearsing. Jesüs Chryst is the Peppermints' second full-length following 2003's Sweettooth Abortion, and was largely recorded by Hot Snakes' Gar Woods. Plowing through 18 tracks in a merciful 29 minutes, the album is an unholy blur of gracelessly screeched female vocals and disappointingly spindly guitars, at points recalling a lazier Melt Banana but utterly lacking that group's venomous precision and power.
As the album's title and songs like "Sexy Total Fuck" or the lustful lament "Cousin" suggest, much of Jesüs Chryst's brief running time is spent attempting to make offense a skill, but there's little here that'll outrage anyone except the same stripe of Christian conservative who might protest the presence of a vampire puppet on "Sesame Street" teaching children to count. Besides, nearly all of the vocals here are delivered in a uniform shriek that renders most lyrics completely unintelligible, although on such exceptions as the chirpy "Onion Salad", lines like "Take your clothes off/ Get molested/ It's festive/ Read the menu/ Take your nephew" might indicate we're not missing much.
The opening "Yellow Rain"-- which features a barbed twang suggesting a Ricky Wilson-penned B-52's track plagued by rowdy vandals-- delivers a solid minute of innocuously scruffy diversion, as does the burly noise of the pounding "Rabid Frogs". The glassy drone of "Santorum" provides the album its most intriguing change-up, but the bulk of Jesüs Chryst is likely to appeal only to the least discriminating punk palates, solely restricted to those who find the Peppermints' uncompromising crudity to be a virtue.
