Album review: Leche releases new EP, “Gas Powered Guillotine”
Just in time for Austin’s busiest music season, hometown punk band Leche return with a new EP, Gas Powered Guillotine. The four-piece, consisting of Toenail Jones (drums), YT (bass), 20 Dollups (guitar), and Vik Dogwood (vox), released their latest recording on February 16 on the Digital Hotdogs label.
The satirical rantings of Dogwood are as sharp as ever, with more complex song structure and instrumentation from the band, incorporating new sounds and concepts into their blended brand of cowpunk, thrash, experimental and metal music.
Title track, “Gas Powered Guillotine” opens the album with high-powered punk, incorporating heavy elements of metal and finishes with a stellar 20 Dollups guitar solo.
“Dosed By Dad” follows with guitar and rolling bass. Vik’s lyrics kick in, and Leche is present in full form.
The third track on the EP ,“Indie v Pleb Students,” offers a sharp, relevant commentary on current inequities in the public school system, and the blatant lies within public discourse surrounding them.
“Silicon Valley Hoopsters” is a commentary on the current clashing state of tech versus reality via freaking-hilarious dialogue from someone who “reserved” a basketball court at a public park using an app. Leche are well in their wheelhouse pointing out the absurdities of 21st Century life.
The entitled selfishness of the ultra-wealthy is examined in the track “Premium Suffrage.” “Guantanamo Bait” finishes up this latest studio recording from the punk quartet with a venomous critique of our criminal justice system.
Gas Powered Guillotine tackles topical subject matter in the most concise, emotive way that we’ve seen from Leche to date. The band’s lyrics are sharp as ever, while their instrumentation has become far more complex, and yet, the band’s sound is strikingly cohesive. This is their best work yet, and with the possibility of a full-length release later this year, Austin music fans should be enthusiastically excited with what Leche is doing.
True fans will want to grab their limited edition, “Hand stamped. Real-time stereo dub” cassette available at Leche’s Bandcamp page.
Leche has shows coming up at Chess Club on March 10 and at the “Gentrification Station” at The Parlor for SXSW on March 18.
Check our Leche archive page for more on the Austin hardcore band.
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