“Oh, what a piece of work is woman,” quoth the bard (sort of).
Conelrad’s latest EP, Sluts & Slobs (titled after an infamous 1970s mag that featured an even more infamous Annie Sprinkle “technicolor yawn” spread) finds Pittsburgh duo of guitarist/vocalist Adam MacGregor and drummer/vocalist Jeff Gretz duly awed and inspired by the fairer sex. Inspired enough to heave up five brief offerings to and for the ladies, albeit closer in form to raw and putrid ambergris chunks than gentle splashes of top-shelf perfume.
It’s been two years since their debut full-length, A Final Dissolution, set roiling self-contempt and desperate introspection to the tune of their trademark labyrinthine post-thrash/grindcore. This time, MacGregor and Gretz take aim and fire with their “relationship” record. A screed found on an exposed stud in the bathroom of Epigram 154 studios after an overdub session: “We are cursed with poor sense, and an unshakable drive for martyrdom. Given the choice, we are more likely to march away from grace, headlong into the mincer, then complain about our misery later.” And what a complaint it is.
This isn’t your boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, don’t-forget-to-tape-“The-O.C.”-for-me healthy emotional buoyancy fare. Instead, in the broad strokes and blanket indictments that have made the band darlings of misanthropes across the mid-Atlantic, Conelrad posits modern dating as ritualized emasculation as in “Burdizzo”, a one-minute crust exhaust blast co-voiced by ex-Sequoia shriekteuse Julie Nowak. Conelrad runs a metaphorical bloody-toothed saw over the quivering flesh of BDSM mentality with “Fear and Abandonment”, then mashes what pulp remains with a plodding paean to fitful celibacy and self-containment, “Mr. Right” (penned by Steve Moore of Zombi). A thematically apropos take on the Nomeansno classic, “No Fucking” ends the brief transmission for now. Stay tuned for more shit from the sick minds who think it.
CONELRAD FUCK THE FACTS:
• Drummer Jeff Gretz is a member of Zao. Yes, that Zao. His work can be heard on their recent, critically acclaimed album, “The Fear is What Keeps Us Here” (Ferret Music). Adam MacGregor played briefly in Creation is Crucifixion and Fate of Icarus, well before the squares took over the metal scene.
• Adam plays bass and voice for Crucial Blast recording artists (((microwaves))). He also plays guitar and rends his own vocal cords for the mechanized sludge downer trio Brown Angel, which also features (((microwaves))) drummer John Roman. John Roman released Conelrad’s full-length on the New Addition Media label, and he once met Jason Mewes at Dee’s in the Southside, who was in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” with Ben Affleck, who was in “Gigli” with David Pressman, who was in “Pyrates” with Kevin Bacon.
• Conelrad doesn’t tour much these days, but previously has supported top acts Yowie, the Flying Luttenbachers, Zombi, and the Pay Toilets in brief out-of-state jaunts since 2004.
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