Plague Vendor – Bloodsweat

California garage-punk act Plague Vendor first established themselves as an unrestrained mix of fairly visceral influences with their debut full length, Free To Eat.  The four-piece defined themselves as both an outlier and natural fit for their home on Epitaph Records – their feedback soaked, grunge coated take on punk-rock bucked the more “relevant” label casting trends in favour of old-school, experimental fervor.  Two years later, Plague Vendor returns with their sophomore full length, Bloodsweat.  Serving as the continuation of the aforementioned rock-n-roll attitude, Plague Vendor keeps the volume high and head-banging spirit roaring across eleven raw and rambunctious tracks.

Early on, Plague Vendor traverses diverse ground, converging a range of stylistic influences in a dark, messy sonic collage.  A raw garage ethic maintains itself across quick to sluggish tempos, starting at the midway point with the choral eruptions of “Anchor To Ankles.”  Spoken in a fuzzed out, Strokes-esque deadpan intro, vocalist Brandon Blaine builds to the breaking point in which sweaty thrash intercedes melody.  The likeness begs comparison to Australian counterparts Violent Soho as they momentarily kick restraint to the curb for a spastic lapse in sanity when the chorus hits like a crowd surfer entering a mosh pit.  The polarized madness continues in the back and forth of the abrupt verse-chorus shift of “Credentials.”  Meanwhile, those like “Fire To Emotion” and “Saturday Night Shakes” break out in the pulse-pounding, brain-bending energy of early Hot Hot Heat and Violent Femmes.

But don’t confuse Bloodsweat’s rabbid, accelerated nature as a case of attitude over substance.  When Plague Vendor scales back the tempo, each layer reveals a distinct and complex underpinning.  Take the dark, lurking atmospheric glaze of “Ox Blood,” which achieves a balance between minimal, single chord guitar notes and riff-heavy, Jack White-style vocalization.  “No Bounty” furthers the likeness in a lyrically intriguing, narrative driven romp that could have served as a rougher cut from The Raconteurs.  Such vocal ambition culminates in the hip swaggering album closer “Got It Bad.”  Delivered with a hint of southern rock and a thick, resolute bass groove, Blaine’s voice cracks ambitiously as he belts each raw and exposed lyric.  The result squarely hits the mark.

Plague Vendor affectionately describe their style as “voodoo punk,” which comes across in the heavy basslines and the dark, brooding veil blanketing Bloodsweat’s deepest core.  While stylistically aligning mostly with older generations, Plague Vendor infuses refreshing doses of variety in making grunge and fuzz-coated garage punk relevant again.  The target here is contemporary alternative audiences that don’t mind drinking from a dirty cup – and that’s exactly what Plague Vendor serves on tap.