SIRHAN SIRHAN ‘Blood’ (Anodyne Records) RATING: 8/10

By JEFF MAKI

Every so often, for whatever reason, I get completely blown away by a certain album. Usually it's by an artist I'm hearing for the first time and that in turn makes it even more exciting. Sirhan Sirhan's Blood is the latest album to do this. I was on my way home from my day job when I heard this, tired and worn out from another endless day and Blood turned out to be the antidote I needed to let out my angst and frustration. Sirhan Sirhan is a trio made up of Jason Blackmore (vocals/guitar), Mike Johnston (bass, backing vocals) and Alex Organ (drums). The band formed in San Diego in 2005 hoping to resurrect the underground rock scene in SoCal. Their sound is a noisy concoction of hardcore punk, alternative rock and metal. If one word best describes their sound, it's distortion. It reminds me a lot of Butthole Surfers, especially in the vocal department and nonstop guitar riffs and fuzz. Blackmore has that crazy and wacky vocal style like the Surfers' Gibby Haynes. This guy is really cuckoo. You never know what he's going to do next. Other comparisons can be made to Bad Brains, The Melvins and Bleach-era Nirvana.

The album is downright filthy, noisy, and aggressive. The hardcore noise anthems “Rise” and “Burn It Down” are my two new favorite songs. Blood's 11 songs run barely more than 25 minutes (and the closer “Don't Shoot” makes up 5:48 of that), a perfect length for this style of music. It's just long enough to give you that much needed slap-in-the-face wake-up call, then have you craving for more. Blood could have been released in 1994 and I wouldn't have known the difference. So many classic metal and alternative rock albums came out around that time and this album has that nostalgic feel. The best part about Blood is that it's completely unpredictable. The songs are memorable and they don't all follow the run of the mill verse-chorus-verse format. If this album is reflective of the band members' personalities, the boys in Sirhan Sirhan should be a lot of fun to hang out with (and potentially dangerous). Much like listening to Blood, serious injury could occur.