Last week our own Michael H. Little hipped you to the new release from Hamell on Trial, The Night Guy at The Apocalypse Profiles of a Rushing Midnight, writing, “Forget about Charles Bukowski; Hamell’s darkly hilarious tall tales of brutal revenge, crimes both small-time and large, dysfunctional love, and drug- and alcohol-fueled mayhem are a million miles away from America’s original barfly’s quotidian tales of ordinary madness.”
“At the Apocalypse people get taken out in some not so very pretty ways, but don’t get too disturbed–they really, and I mean really, have it coming…If you’re smart, you’ll buy this LP and help Hamell the night guy turn out the lights…”
No faint praise, hm? But don’t take it just from us–how about from the Dean of Rock Critics himself, Robert Christgau who also opined via Noisey last week, “Recorded live on his phone in venues hither and yon, these 13 low-life tales are different from all the other low-life tales the barfly with his stage name on the cover has peddled over the years. That’s because they’re enraged rather than merely sardonic, and also because 14 of these low-lifes die, often hideously.
These include one commander-in-chief (it was the vodka, swear to God) and start with the five dispatched quatrain by quatrain in “Slap”: a wife-beating cop, a foreclosure king, a Nazi fuck, a pedophile priest, and some lawyer or CEO or something whose smirk Bobby didn’t like. Accompanied solely by Ed Hamell’s trusty guitar and one boozy singalong, the minimal melodies of these brutal fantasies hit bone on the strength of the narrative punch he’s honed over decades on the road—”I’ve gotta go from Iceland to Dublin,” he notes at the close of “Melting Snow (Kill Them All).”
That ominously subtitled selection adds no new stiffs to the death toll. It merely targets every stupid-as-shit hate-spewer now adding meanness to the world—starting, let’s figure, with a commander-in-chief or something who inspired this Jeremiah-come-lately to spew his report from the fucking front. Which front, in case you hadn’t noticed, is everywhere.” A
Hey, but it ain’t all bad–in fact we have a copy of Ed’s latest to send to one of you—on “crime scene cleanup” clear blood-streaked vinyl, natch.
Enter to win Hamell on Trial’s The Night Guy at The Apocalypse Profiles of a Rushing Midnight by simply citing in the comments below your favorite Hamell on Trial track—and briefly why. (Ours is “Blood of the Wolf,” so that one’s out!) We’ll choose one winner with a North American mailing address one week from today, Monday, October 22, 2018.
