Old Lady Drivers

Yes, that would be the best way to describe these three American boys having noisy fun a whole 36 minutes long. Or is it ‘when Carcass meets Mucky Pup’ or 'When SOB meets The Accused''? Who cares, this is not just funny, it’s bloody good as well!

On this album O.L.D. still had a real drummer, Ralph Pimentel. The guy looks like Harko from BOOM but he can play his grind adequately. Just like their music, the band looks filthy. Sticky hair, unshaven faces, second hand leather jackets and hanging out at dirty toilets. Image is everything, right?

As said, the majority of this album is dirty, extreme and fast grindcore but it is the experimental and funny stuff that set the band apart from contemporary artists. The high pitched vocals on “Supermarket Monstrosity” including the funny lyrics about being scared of old folks makes it hilarious! “Bathrooms Rule” is built around funny lyrics and even comprehensible! The nursery rhyme in “Die In Your Beauty Sleep” is memorable and so is the parody on operatic vocals on “Screaming Geezer”.

The grindcore element is here is great as well. Just try the two openers “Total Hag” and “Corpse Full of Gunk” and you’ll have to admit that even without the humor O.L.D. still are one of the better old school grindcore bands from ’88. An important element here are thrashy stop-and-go attitude of the compositions and the very distinct vocals of Alan Dubin. His screams are unequalled within the grindcore scene, even today.

No forgetting to mention that, despite playing raging grindcore, James Plotkin’s guitarsound is already pretty different from other extreme bands from that period. I do not know why but I think he uses some kind of chorus effect over it all the time. Whatever it is, it gives the album even more individual character.

So in short, if you like grindcore: get this album. If you like humor: get this album. If you like both: you will already have this album. This album has character and still stands firm in its originality. Once you’ve heard this album you’ll scream “One More Time Grandma” at least once a month for the rest of your life. Guaranteed!

This album of highly original speed/grindcore was released on Earache records (mosh 7) in 1988 and much like most of the first 10-20 releases on this label, this is a classic. OLD on this album deliver a chaotic sounding but controlled piece of insane thrashing madness, very intense and with a great sense of comedy and played with skill - for the standards in those days anyway. The music on this album is hard to describe because of its originality, but think of an evil version of Spazztic Blurr (the comedy, the speed, the use of inventive breaks and acoustic, weird and original guitar parts) and typical 80’s speedcore acts like Wehrmacht, Cryptic Slaughter and Grim Reality/Gloom-era Macabre but faster than any of these bands. The first thing you will notice when hearing this album is the truly unique and demented voice of Alan Dubin , who sounds a bit like an enraged Blaine Fart (Accused) infected with rabies – always screaming and sometimes just ranting insanely over the music. The guitar (and bass) playing of main songwriter James Plotkin is also something that sticks out – full of original ideas and played with a skill seldom heard in this type of music at the time. There is a cover of Eric Clapton’s ‘Cocaine’ on this record that is actually pretty good (but a little out of place maybe) – I think that says enough. The drumming of Ralph Pimentel impressed me very much at the time that this record came out. One of the first drummers to really play a fast blastbeat and not to lose power or to slow down, and even able to keep it up during ‘longer’ songs. Remember this was before ‘World Downfall’ (Terrorizer) or ‘Horrified’ (Repulsion) came out, although the latter was recorded earlier.

The record starts with ‘Total Hag’ which really sets the standard for this record. After an intro which lasts about a minute and sounds a lot like ‘Multinational Corporations’ (Napalm Death) all hell breaks lose – insane grind, maniacal vocals and short semi acoustic breaks. Then ‘Corpse Full of Gunk’, 1.38 minutes of pure grind and some nice stop-go breaks, followed by ‘Supermarket Monstrosity’ which has a funny intro, more speedcore insanity and is sung with a helium-like voice. And so this record goes on, only slowing down on the aforementioned ‘Cocaine’ and ‘Whisdom Lost’ – one of the few longer songs on this album that features some nice atmospheric parts. My personal favourite is ‘Special Olympics’ with nice breaks, furious grind parts and particularly weird vocal sounds, but really it could be any of these songs. Lyrically this albums deals with the elderly and disabled in a juvenile and politically incorrect manner which fits the music perfectly though. This album is so full of ideas that it doesn’t surprise me that the main songwriter James Plotkin went on to be very active musically both with OLD (which became a more avant-garde type of electronic/industrial/guitar project – even working with the great John Zorn) and as a solo artist in the electronic/ambient scene (where amongst other things he collaborated with former Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris on an ambient project)
This album is probably very hard to get on both vinyl or cd (I never saw a cd version) but if you are into 80s grind or speedcore with an insane twist – get this one!