CONTENT WARNING: Holocaust imagery and reference in review of other Anal Trump reviews
(review for To All the Broads... originally written on January 24th, 2017)
Travis Ryan, usually involved with more serious grindcore (such as Cattle Decapitation and Murder Construct) and Rob Crow (of Pinback, which is an indie rock band funnily enough) have teamed up to put together another EP for their satirical Donald Trump-themed project, Anal Trump. Considering how short their ‘full-length’ album was at roughly 3 minutes, it’s no surprise that this release barely reaches 1 minute long, with 10 tracks to boot.
Even though this album was released to ‘commemorate’ Trump’s inauguration, it honestly sounds like they could have conceivably written and recorded it on that same day. There is so little thought seemingly put into this that I was wondering whether I should even write a review for it. The humour is about as obnoxious and on-the-nose as any of the Trump SNL parodies, and it wears thin before the minute duration of the album is even up. The most clever thing about it is the album cover that depicts a flower gets urinated on and the decision to press the release on “piss yellow” yinyl.
Sonically, even though the band name references Anal Cunt they sound more like they’re channelling Agoraphobic Nosebleed. Minus most of the appeal, unfortunately. The things that work best in Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s sound are the insane, overbearing fast drum machine beats, meaty riffs and wacky over-the-top lyrics that go together to craft a surreal atmosphere of debauchery, violence and general extremity. Anal Trump doesn’t even come close.
When it comes to Anal Trump, the vocals are at the forefront of the mix. There is mostly nothing special about the guitar work and the drum work is decent but fairly buried within that mix. Songs are mostly indistinguishable save for two. Although that can be par for the course with grindcore typically there are memorable moments throughout a grindcore album – although you might not be able to remember which song they were part of, they will still likely resonate with you later and I feel like nothing on this release will accomplish that for me.
The two songs that stand out for me are The Fat Picture and The Trump Rule. The Fat Picture has the single best vocal performance on the album and I wish I saw that kind of variety and ferocity more often. It reminds me a lot of Devin Townsend at his most insane. The Trump Rule features Travis’ higher pitched clean vocals which Cattle Decapitation fans will be familiar with and even though I don’t think it works too well here I appreciate attempt at variety.
I can only hope if Anal Trump does another release (which they probably will) that they put just a little more thought into it. I’m not expecting the most socially aware satire to come from this project, but I’m hoping for a little more considering the talent involved.
Ultimately, this EP is about as well thought-out as a Donald Trump tweet.
0.5 / 10
Highlights: "The Fat Picture"
You can find and purchase this EP digitally here. All net proceeds are donated to Planned Parenthood. The vinyl is sold out by now and incredibly unlikely to be repressed. (you're probably not missing much)
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Upon republication of this review, I decided to check out another Anal Trump release to see if they had improved any.
If You Thought Six Million Jews Was A Lot Of People, You Should've Seen My Inauguration (released 2 months later) is definitely an improvement over this. The lyrics of Christian Discount satirise the topic at hand (immigration) better than the completely on-the-nose jokes on To All the Broads. Nuclear Football Photo-Op's lyrics also paint a pretty funny mental image of exactly what the song title implies. Race Detector and Nuclear Football Photo-Op feature more of the vocal variety I liked on The Fat Picture, with an engaging double drum / guitar pattern on Race Detector that transitions into a slow section at the end. The biggest surprise, besides having some of the jokes actually land on this album, is the intro of Does This Cross Make Me Look Fat?, which begin with an unwinding guitar line that is joined by a pounding drumbeat. It almost sounded like a real song. Maybe it's un-grindcore-like to say this, but I would definitely like to hear more like that.
3 / 10
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