Casual Victim Pile II [Album Review]
The second installment of Casual Victim Pile, Matador Records' co-chief Gerard Cosloy's yearbook of Red River roll 'n' roll, begins with a simple, sneering declaration by Orville Neeley: "Bullshit." The OBN III's then launch into "Do My Thing," a raucous, energetic punk number with a great guitar hook. If there's any kind of governing principle to be found among the Beerland all-stars tabbed for selection this time around, it's somewhere between that casual, don't-give-a-fuck attitude and the viciously fun music that makes you want to fling beer against the walls and repeatedly and violently collide with your fellow concert-goers.
In other words, Casual Victim Pile II is a good representation of what you might find on a typical night at Beerland. Cosloy has spoken about his reluctance to categorize the bands on these albums as members of a scene, instead reiterating in interviews that these bands are simply ones he feels deserving of more attention. The album - a vinyl-only release on revived boutique label 12XU - shows a scrappier range of bands drawing from a wide variety of sonic influences, a kind of nihilistic punk rock free-for-all in which no band really seems poised to make the same jump as Harlem, Woven Bones and Follow That Bird did after the first Casual Victim Pile last year.
That doesn't mean the music is lacking, though - far from it. On the first side alone, we get the jittery rock of Simple Circuit's "Sattrash" and juvey spitballs from Women In Prison's "Kill Kommie Kops" (one of several rallying-anthems-whose-titles-are-suggestions-about-how-to-fuck-the-man-and-do-your-thing that are the bread-and-butter of punk rock; see also "Steal From Your Parents", "Fuck the Past" and, of course, "Do My Thing".) Literature's "Man Made Man" is a fuzzy, melodic number that is ridiculously danceable, while a bouncy bass line, lightly jazzy drums and mantric boy-girl vocals give Hatchet Wound's aforementioned contribution "Fuck the Past" a twee charm. Side one concludes with Yorkshire transplant Sally Crewe leading her tightly-wound power-pop trio, The Sudden Moves, in the nostalgic power-pop cut "Someone Said".
The band most likely to break out, A Giant Dog, kick off side two with their barroom sing-a-long "The Grand", singer Sabrina Ellis's theatrical vocals curlicuing above catchy cut-time guitar chords before breaking down into a harmonica-led interlude and a code with handclaps. The Dead Space follow up with "Hard Answers", a post-hardcore jam with squealing guitars that seem to peel off the incantory vocals. Serious Tracers' "Cowboys and Indians" is a one-minute hardcore song about manifest destiny, kinda, while The French Inhales serve up a chunky dose of early-80s style college-radio rock. Finally, we get a bewitched psychedelic drone from The Zoltars, a buzzsaw of a song from Coma in Algiers and eight minutes of eat-shattering guitar feedback and drums that sound like distant explosions from Expensive Shit as a sayonara.
The eighteen songs on Casual Victim Pile II have in common an all-in brashness that seems to typify the best D.I.Y. music. You should really see these bands live to get the full experience, but in lieu of that, this record is a good starting point for immersing yourself in some of Austin's finer, lesser-known bands.
You can preview the album and order the vinyl at the Casual Victim Pile website.
