Bathouse

Don't get fooled by the above picture of these three young and lovely Swedish hipsters, today we're talking loud and nasty music (aren't we always?).

I have to be honest here, I discovered this band quite recently thanks to the great blog Perte&Fracas (a bottomless pit of noise culture in French only, merci Xavier) and I was immediately hooked! So even if their latest release is not exactly super new (it's from late 2020), I decided to write a little something about it anyway because, first I absolutely love it, and second I feel that it was mostly ignored by the punk/noise intelligentsia and it does deserve proper "publicity" (and I do what the fuck I want here anyway).

So here we go!

 

Based in Malmö, the Swedish trio prepared for battle in a few other bands before (and after) retreating to the bat-cave around 2015, bands like the dark punk quartet War In Youth, the indie act Mary Anne's Polar Rig (they released their debut album a couple of months ago), the loud British/Swedish post-punk duo Sex Act and probably others that the omniscient world wide web has no idea of.

I will pass quickly on An Album for Rawkers and Never Enough Rawk, from 2016 and 2017 respectively, which are most likely rehearsal recordings and don't do justice to the band's sound. One song (Hell) did make it to the below album though.

 

Bathouse's self-titled debut album was released on vinyl by Happiest Place Records and on cassette by Spinal Chord Records at the end of the amazing last year.

But let's start with a quick stop on the cover artwork which I find highly effective in its simplicity but that, most of all, made me immediately think of the cover artwork of the Mexican punk classic Sedicion's Verdaderas Historias De Horror... A great album which, as you will easily agree, has absolutely nothing to do with today's topic except for the drawing of the proud chiropteran.

 

Ok enough fucking around let's start with the difficult task of describing what Bathouse actually sounds like. Hum hum (clearing throat), imagine a nice day of spring, the sun is shining, the air is just warm enough to feel comfortable wearing a t-shirt only and you're sitting in the grass, in a quiet and lovely piece of land next to a small lake with a peaceful surface, the soft sound of the water is only disturbed by the discreet and cute chirping of birds happy to be back in the good weather... you got it? good! well that's exactly what Bathouse does not evoke at all!

Imagine a very noisy base, so noisy that it's hard to figure out how only one guitar (and one organ?) can create all this mess, so noisy that your brain takes you straight to the dark closet in the back of your foggy mind where Scratch Acid, Brainbombs, Pissed Jeans are getting shitfaced with Walking Korpses and The Hospitals... add some relentless heavy drumming, a few overweight distorted bass lines in the background and some vocals ranging from anguished and heartbreaking screams to 90's-style laments (Chemical Violent, which recalls, for some reasons, the chorus of At-The-Drive-In's One Armed Scissor) and you'll get a closer picture of what kind of ruckus Bathouse is able to make...

 

 

  But you're not there yet though, there is also a bit of grunge (the tearful Hell?), a bit of silly noisy punk bands influences (like Bastard Kestrel?) but most of all there is a shitload of energy and a clear will to go for it, to not let you quietly sip your aperol spritz with your cardboard straw like a jerk but rather to kick your fat ass until you can recite the Greek alphabet in reverse.

 

Even the quieter and "groovy" Moon Creature, full of cool bass lines and screeching guitar riffs, has the strong smell of nursing home curtains set on fire by a toddler with matches from your kitchen. Yes swedes can be unpleasant too.

 

  One last good point, the band had the good taste to maintain all this noise and fury in a duration fitting in your next-door hardcore punk record, about 20 minutes... well I admit that I would not have minded a little extra time, when it comes to love you don't count after all but at the end of the day I do believe that intensity is better appreciated on short records (who wants to listen to two hours of power-violence in a row anyway? this is not Guantanamo here for Christ's sake) so that's fine with me... as long as you're not gonna make us wait another 4 or 5 years before the next delivery guys!

 

It's unfortunately too late to include this record in My Best Of 2020 list but believe me, as soon as I got my hands on a time machine taking back to crappy years, I do it.

 

 

 

 

  

 

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