{"id":38390,"date":"2005-06-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dare-i-say\/"},"modified":"2005-06-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-02T00:00:00","slug":"dare-i-say","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dare-i-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Dare I Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hermano is no Supafuzz. Conversely, Supafuzz was no Hermano,
\neven though both bands included guitarist\/vocalist Dave Angstrom
\nand drummer Chris Leathers. Supafuzz built a regional following in
\nmy area with their excellent 2000 release
\nAll About The Rock<\/i> (which has been
\nreviewed on this site<\/a>). Their live CD
\nDown For The Underground<\/i> (also
\nreviewed on this site<\/a>) managed to
\ncapture the band’s appeal while leaving fans begging for more.
\nTheir latest release
\nVertigo<\/i> . . . I haven’t heard.<\/p>\n

Hermano, though, I have. Hooking up with vocalist John Garcia
\nand bassist\/guitarist Dandy Brown, each with their own impressive
\nresume of previous musical endeavors, Angstrom and Leathers sound
\nexceptional. In all, the material veers toward the stoner rock
\ngenre without getting sucked into the pitfalls of the genre. There
\nare no 9:00 instrumental jams based upon the same riff, nor are
\nthere any blatant and stupid drug references, unless you count sex
\nas a drug.<\/p>\n

There are definite traces of the Supafuzz vibe. Opener “Cowboys
\nSuck” has the same driving drumbeat of the Supafuzz material. But
\nthis review is not going to be a 1:1 comparison between Supafuzz,
\none of my favorite bands ever, and Hermano. Supafuzz is no longer a
\nfunctioning unit. I tend to get frustrated with critics that
\ncompare a musician’s former band with their current band. Try to
\nfind an Audioslave review that doesn’t mention Rage Against The
\nMachine or Soundgarden.<\/p>\n

That said, Hermano is at times quite vulgar. Sometimes it works,
\nsometimes it doesn’t. Focusing on two songs “Quite Fucked” and
\n“Let’s Get It On” show the effects of vulgarity in the band’s
\nmaterial. Simply, Hermano got it all wrong with “Quite Fucked.” The
\nsong drags into a mindless chant of “Go motherfucker motherfucker
\ngo” that has me wishing the motherfucker would listen and, well, go
\nalready. The song is painfully vulgar and the lyrics are stupid.
\nAny garage band could have written a song with the chant in this
\nsong. It’s as annoying as the chorus in the House of Pain tune
\n“Jump Around.” I routinely skip “QF” when spinning this CD.<\/p>\n

Another track I skip is the stupid closer “Angry American.” This
\nsong goes downhill almost immediately when it builds the bulk of
\nthe song with the following lyrics repeated: “Look at me, look at
\nme, look at me, look at me, look at me, I’m the angry American.”
\nYes, the subject in this song is an angry American and also
\nincapble of writing a decent song about being angry.<\/p>\n

However, when Hermano gets the stupid lyrics out of the way,
\nthey are lethal as a band. “Let’s Get It On” stands out slightly
\nmore than the former. Consider the lyrics from outsider Aleah X,
\nknown for her vocal work with the band Devil May Care (which both
\nAngstrom and Leathers are members of): “I’ve got you on my mind \/ I
\nwant to screw you blind . . . I try hard to be nice but you’ll
\nnever fuck me twice.” In this case, the vulgarity works towards the
\ntheme of the song. The lyrics are as vulgar as other tracks but
\njust seem more intelligent. They aren’t saying the F word because
\nthey have nothing better to say.<\/p>\n

The low-key calm “Murder One” stands out with an acoustic guitar
\nriff and handclaps that breaks up the driving rock drumbeats
\nthroughout the rest of the release. The guitar solo is soulful and
\nthought-out. Another standout is second track “Life.” Drummer Chris
\nLeathers has a sensational style that incorporates cymbals, toms,
\nand the snare into a hypnotic rhythm. The riff Angstrom plays in
\nthe verse follows the drum pattern until the chorus, when he
\nintroduces a new riff. All the while Garcia’s vocal melody melts
\ninto the rhythms of the song.<\/p>\n

I wanted to like Hermano more than I did. In the end, I found
\nlistening to Hermano a frustrating use of my time. There are
\nglimpses of a fantastic band in some of this material. Then the
\nnext track should have hit the cutting room floor. I think the band
\nneeded an outsider to listen to the songs and ultimately say, “No.
\nYou don’t really want to include “Quite Fucked” or “Angry American”
\nbecause those songs are not as good as the rest as the others.”
\nUnfortunately, they didn’t have that outsider around when they were
\nputting the final touches on this release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7162],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38390","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hermano","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38390"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38390"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}