Barren Womb – The Suns Not Yellow, Its Chicken

Barren Womb, the Norwegian garage / noise punk duo formed by Timo Silvola and Tony Gonzahl have just dropped their debut full length The Suns Not Yellow, Its Chicken via Seattle based label Spartan Records.

Upon first listen, it is sometimes difficult to believe this much noise could possibly be made by only two people, but believe me when I say it can. The album is an extreme assualt on your senses and almost feels like its sonically bludgeoning you. The lyrical themes are somewhat predictable, anti establishment rants against the corporate world, selling out and religion all feature and although they are not pushing a unique message, their simple, honest approach works well against the chaotic musical foundation.

Kill Hicks opens the record in fearsome garage punk style, with the distortion cranked up to just the right level and a a piano element that keeps this firmly in musical and not noise territory. Live Fast Die puts forth a pretty strong claim for top honours in the record kicking off in familiar garage punk style before the intensely melodic chorus grabs your attention again, making lyrics like ‘what are we doing here, why do we stay. Seems like god has left us anyway’ resonate even more. Evil Prevails is another impressive slice of punk rock, clocking in at under 2 minutes and sending its message about not selling out in 3 simple words: ‘Death! Never! Fails!’.

The album doesn’t manage to quite keep the quality up throughout however; there are no less than 2 instrumentals which although are not particularly long still feel unnecessary and other tracks like Nabrok don’t manage to elevate themselves to the same level as others. In other cases the band put too much emphasis on the message to the detriment of the music, and that is especially apparent on Assmaster of Reality where a thinly veiled attack on the financial markets and those who attempt to govern them just doesn’t manage to add the same tunefulness as their more successful tracks.

All that said, Barren Womb have a knack for being able to combine angry, anti establishment garage punk rock with melody which if they could just manage a little more consistently would make them an unstoppable force in the very near future.