Can I tell you the thing that instantly sucked me in? I mean…of course I can. It’s my blog thing and I’ve been telling you things for 5000+ posts now, but I still like to think that you’re all eager and willing visitors and consumers. The opening track on WORSHIPER’s Pleasure Of The Flesh (titled “Pleasure Of The Flesh” of course) simultaneously reminds me of a song that FUCKFACE would have written at the very end of the run when we were all very very high and a song that a band from Norman, Oklahoma would have written when I lived there in the early 1990s. Something akin to “White Vans In The Mission” by way of FOR LOVE NOT LISA in a time machine but with (very) heavy JESUS LIZARD energy…and that’s the shit that’s gonna hold my attention securely, you know? So I listened intently, and there’s no doubt WORSHIPER are their own animal – while channeling the dark and heavy UNSANE, BLESSING THE HOGS dirges that permeated a segment of the ’90s scenes. It’s not just good, it’s exceptional. And it’s not just a rehash, it’s a rebirth for a dissonant band who had a short and complicated run in the late 2010s that was cut short by addiction and struggle. Unearthed and remixed a couple of years ago after the passing frontperson Mike Parry, the fine folks at Strange Mono and the band’s two surviving members have done the rest of us a service by re-releasing this recording. I was sucked in anyway, the sound/s hold me tight and the ugliness is familiar and strangely comforting, but the context makes this release extra. You can feel the ugliness and the desperation, and you understand WORSHIPER even more in the process.
