Album Review: Bloodsweat by Plague Vendor

Plague Vendor's stellar sophomore album brings more of their beach-soaked punk rock, but some newfound death-disco influence makes it a particularly compelling experience. Their first album, Free To Eat, was a solid tribute to California reverb and manic garage-punk theatrics; what we get here is some of the same recipe but pushed further, with more visceral dynamics and pulsing, angular post-punk rhythms. In what could very well be the record's finest song, slow burner "Ox Blood" offers a simple yet irresistible mid-tempo guitar riff that just rips through with its insanely engaging groove, the heavily distorted vocals and entrancing rhythm complementing the three power chords that drive the song.

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California punk quartet Plague Vendor bury the needle on their mighty sophomore LP for Epitaph Records. The group made an auspicious debut in 2014 powering through ten songs in 18 minutes on the brief but entertaining Free to Eat. The thrashy, no-frills garage punk they put to tape was a pretty direct representation of the frenetic live set they'd spent the previous five years honing in West Coast basements and clubs.

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Dirty, filthy punk rock. Snake Hips, soaked in sweat and six-months-unwashed denim is the order of the day here on an album best described as filthy in every regard. Part garage-punk drawl, part desert-rock freak out, these 11 songs mark Plague Vendor out as a band prepared to invite listeners into the dark recesses of their collective imagination in a way that precious few are.

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