Though New York City’s Boss Hog has existed since the late ’80s (there were some breaks over the years), Brood X is only their fourth album and first in 17 years. While the band achieved cult like status in the ’90s with several releases on the legendary noise rock label Amphetamine Reptile, they were never quite able to make much of a mainstream dent despite a brief stint with DGC\/Geffen in the mid ’90s.<\/p>\n
Spearheaded by husband and wife duo Cristina Martinez and Jon Spencer (of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Pussy Galore), Boss Hog has a sound that has become synonymous with dirty, bluesy glam punk. Their reputation of nudity on albums, as well as in person, brought them ever more attention. While there isn’t much evidence of the latter here, the former is alive and well on Brood X<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly\u201d opens the album and brings us right back to the quintessential frantic Boss Hog sound, where hypnotic and dark rock collide with a seedy, Sabbath blended with PJ Harvey feel. While rowdiness is often a theme here, songs like \u201cBlack Eyes\u201d \u2013 despite being chock full of fuzzed-out, funky guitars \u2013 are more subdued. \u201cGround Control\u201d even brings in soulful, R&B influences from Spencer on vocals that yields a more goth feel. <\/p>\n
Deeper cuts like \u201cSunday Routine\u201d with its healthy bass work and the ominous balladry of album closer \u201c17\u201d are in the company of the best work they’ve done to date. Album highlights \u201cRodeo Chica\u201d with its dual gender vocals and the grungy, post-punk, and melodic alt-rock of \u201cFormula X\u201d are Boss Hog gold, trumping anything they’ve done. <\/p>\n
While many of their peers are returning after long hiatuses with more pop-filled albums, Boss Hog is clearly not interested in that approach. Their filthy, swampy mashing of blues and punky garage rock is still inventive as it was in their heyday, and this album is as fun to listen to as it appears it was to make.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10112],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45190","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-boss-hog","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45190","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45190"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}