“What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet”
But what if that rose was a band, and what if that band was called Bilbong Baggins? Would it sound as sweet? If you’re a longtime reader of the old aQ list and/or this WDYLI? blog, then the answer is probably 100% yes. So many of our favorite bands came to our attention solely based on having a ridiculous moniker, and we are rarely disappointed. I guess the idea is that a mind demented and warped enough to come up with a baffling band name, is probably also gonna come up with the music to match.
Which brings us back to Bilbong Baggins. A mysterious group that the label who put out this cassette (Atrocious Gnosis, also an amazing name for a label) describes as “Cryptic Doom about wizards, bugs and drugs”, and as if that didn’t already potentially promise too much, their description finishes by simply saying: “Better than Sabbath.” Which is true, assuming you wish Black Sabbath sounded more like Rusted Shut, and that Ozzy sounded more like some hybrid of Keiji Haino and a dying wildebeest, and that the guitar riffs sounded more like maybe some of the strings were missing and probably all of the tuning pegs were sheared off in a fit of noise-doom freakout, but the band decided ‘fuck it’ and continued on sans strings, tuning pegs and any real tuning at all.
That’s not to say there aren’t some solid riffs, there most definitely are, but they’re rendered in various shades of ‘fucked up’, the vibe being WAY more basement drug jam that epic doomage. “Weednado” sounds like weirdo country fuck-ups Jon Wayne crossed with Captain Beefheart, peppered with some crappy, almost Brainbombs-ish trumpet bleats. “The Wizard Approaches” gets heavy, but seemingly the heavier the guitars get, the more unhinged and over the top croony the vocals become, but it does definitely veer into some serious stumble-doom territory. Meanwhile album closer “The Horn Of The Ancient Alpine Elders” sounds like disembodied bits of black metal mixed with weird floorcore noisejams, a little Faxed Head handicap-core and a lot of lo-fi clatter and crumble.
Throughout the rest of the record, in between the above highlights, the band explores minimal, 4-track plod rock, fractured outsider psych, hushed bedroom folk damage and – on “Birds Of Death”, maybe our favorite jam here – some awesomely ham-fisted organ/synth noise-prog. That's rendered with the keyboard component cranked, and constantly jittering and jerking from note to note. That track eventually gets all tangled up with more horns and turns into a pretty mesmerizing weirdo psych jam.
And the oozing, rotten cherry on the top of the whole thing is the amazingly amateur high school binder, ballpoint pen cover art. Ta da, Record Of The Week.
So if you like your doom decidedly UN-doomy, and if you like your fucked up, basement-brawl, bruised and bloodied noise rock just a little bit doomy, or if you just dig stuff like Rusted Shut, Drunks With Guns, Puffy Areloas, Twin Stumps, Brainbombs, Drunkdriver, Homostupids or No Balls, but ONLY if that stuff is recorded on a busted up Walkman in a pile of broken bottles at the bottom of a smelly old trash can and fronted by a drunk and disgraced Vegas crooner, then Bilbong Baggins just might be your sweet smelling rose.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that the Atrocious Gnosis label is run by a longtime aQ pal, who is also the genius behind Book Of Sand, who has a new record out called Postmodern Witchcraft on Auris Apothecary, which recasts BoS’ previously more black metal sound in the form of creepy reverb drenched garage rock. Sounds weird maybe but it’s so beautiful and pretty much perfect. Obviously HIGHLY recommended as well…
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