Psyched Öut And Furiöus

I cannot answer on your behalf dear reader but in these uncertain times I do occasionally feel in need of some moral guidance and rectitude from my favoured recording artists. Today’s lesson comes from those upright, up-all-night, definitely not uptight Swedes, the Hellacopters:

Doin' very bad feelin' really ill
Blowin' doctors for sleepin' pills
So you wanna die don't care who lives
Scratchin' your crotch wondering what gives

I feel more morally equipped to deal with the world already.

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Payin’ The Dues escaped from captivity back in ’97, probably by savaging a keeper before bending the bars on its cage to get out. It was the sequel to the Hellacopters debut LP* and was just part of an incredibly febrile, feral, feline time for Swedish hard rock/glam/garage/punk ‘n roll – think Backyard Babies, Hives and Gluecifer** too.

Hellacopters were formed by Nicke Andersson, drummer of death metallers Entombed, who decided that simply being the drummer in a band that totally changed a genre wasn’t cool enough. Recruiting three of Entombed’s former roadies he became the new band’s guitarist and vocalist.

That one of the ex-roadies was the supremely cool Dregen, already a member of 1537-faves Backyard Babies, did the project no harm whatsoever. Adding to the cool factor, not that they needed the boost, the Hellacopters opted for one of my fave things in the whole musical world, the band-name-as-surname thing.

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By the time of Payin’ The Dues the sound of the Hellacopters was pure Detröit; speed, spittle and spite. Also factor in that every single track here has the kind of full on hard-charging guitar solo that can only ever be played properly shirtless in the rain, on the top of an erupting volcano, whilst wearing scratched mirror shades, cigarette dangling from the mouth. I am powerless to resist.

Pick your favourite track here from any of them, ‘You Are Nothin”, ‘Riot On The Rocks’, ‘Calapso Nervioso’, ‘Where The Action Is’, they’re all greatest hits LP material, basically.

Every single track here evinces the same full throttle, scorched nostril policy of an ultimately hedonistic band worshipping the MC5, without the free jazz bits. They drop a great cover of Sonic Rendezvous Band’s ‘City Slang’ too, which might be the best track here on some listens.

Blast my way with raging speed
Beelzebub gimme what I need    (Soulseller)

A particularly churlish churl might argue that Payin’ The Dues is all very well but the LP is lacking a bit of variety if you were looking for a single track that wasn’t played at breakneck speed and/or about action – the finding, getting, consequences, regrets and further pursuit thereof being particular obsessions hereabouts. I mean, for fuck’s sake people what did you expect?! the co-producer is called Andrew Shit! There’s a clue right there.

Again what do you expect from a band named after Mexican drug grower’s slang for CIA choppers?

This is music for rockin’, ragin’, destroyin’ and all the other good words without g’s on the end^. Payin’ The Dues is a welcome sure shot of adrenalin into the flabby corpse of pre-millennium rock. Subtlety be damned.

Perfect for a Wednesday night moral reset.

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My copy of Payin’ The Dues is sadly not an authentically aged copy with the kind of patina a record can only acquire by being used to skin up on in a squat in Gothenburg, it is a 2017 RSD picture disc. I rather like the the fact that the notes on the back tell you which side is which and the poster of the Hellacopters branded jalopy, as neat an embodiment of their own self-destruction derby as one could ever want.

1197 Down.

*the supremely titled Supershitty To The Max.

**yes, I know they’re Norwegian but stop bothering me with facts when I’m trying to spin a narrative.

^gardenin’, cleanin’, ironin’ and exfoliatin’?