BONGZILLA – Nuggets
(2008 Relapse )
Depending on your particular hobbies, Bongzilla could be interpreted as either an open-source smoking device or a monster who is too laid back to stomp the shit out of Japanese cities. One scan through the song titles of Nuggets (“Smoke Like The Wind”, “Hemp For Victory”, “Brownie”) makes it quite obvious which side of the drug war they’re fighting on. They cranked out their fusion of stoner rock and sludgy extreme metal well enough to snag a worldwide distribution deal with Relapse records a decade ago, but their new CD is mostly material they smoked out in their earlier days (it is essentially a reissue of their Shake: The Singles compilation, with new artwork and some added material).
“Dealer McDope” is perhaps the most intriguing track here; it kicks off with samples detailing the money involved in the business of peddling things green and leafy, and ends with several minutes of someone hacking up a lung because they apparently couldn’t handle what Mr. McDope sold them. Fans and weed proponents everywhere have probably heard most of what’s here before, but for the uninitiated who haven’t followed them like the Grateful Dead it’s a good introduction to what you may have missed out on in the 90’s. Contained herein are possible anthems for the annual Midwest Harvest Fest march to the Capitol on State Street, assuming that the protesters are marching at a rather languid pace.
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