GRAND HALLS 10

LOUDMOUTH – “Loudmouth” CD ’99 (Hollywood, US) – You want to know something funny about LOUDMOUTH’s self-titled 1999 release? Seems that after it’s release, a certain well-known Bay Area metal unit was heard touting it’s merits far & wide. And…hmm…let me think….1999. Wasn’t that somewhere in between “Reload” & “St. Anger?” Pretty damn funny, if you ask me, that at their absolute nadir, the worst point of their career, they still knew what the fuck was good to listen to. That’s a belly-laugh! The only thing is, there’s nothing funny about this little hunk of plastic called “Loudmouth.” Granted, the cover art would never attract your attention. You’d skip right over that baby in a flip through any budget bin and in doing so, like myself, you’d miss a prime injection of pure hard rawkin’ metal. That’s what I’d done until my buddy Peacedogman chided me for not keeping my eyes open. Yeah, this is the goods from front to back, like if you jacked up a Les Paul through about 6 Laneys, squeezed the results into a syringe & mainlined it. Just take one of my personal faves, “Rats In The Maze.” Where the hell do you come up with that kind of riff and it’s one that somebody like Jimmy Page, Dimebag Darrell (R.I.P.) or Bruce Franklin hasn’t already authored? Well, Bob Fedderson found the motherlode when he put his LOUDMOUTH gang together for this album. Man, and just staying with “Rats…” what about that solo?! You know Tony McQuaid was rushed to the emergency room with friction blisters on his hand after recording the one…um…TWO scorching lead bloodbaths in this one, right? This is one of those albums that is not complicated, it’s not painted with layers of progressive shadings, it’s not something your girlfriend will sigh about, saying “Fedderson’s so sensitive!” No, right down to Bob’s throaty mid-ranged vox, this is the kind of record that is designed to do one thing: remove your face. The more I listen to this record, even today, close to 10 years later, it’s magnificent windows-down foot-up-your-ass power is undiminished by an iota. What are you waiting for, go find one in a thrift store near you for $1.99 like I did. I’ll betcha James Hetfield paid more for his copy than that. 10.0

NOTE: Bob Fedderson re-appeared in 2003 with a band/album entitled METALHEAD – “Metal Bands Only.” To be honest, it wasn’t on a par with the above-worshipped sucker but it’s still excellent straight-ahead metal & well-worth checking out.