Don’t let the name and the pink album cover fool you; Deez Nuts are out to stomp yours.
Originally a one-man band formed a decade ago in Melbourne, Australia—that man being JJ Peters, one-time drummer of I Killed the Prom Queen—Deez Nuts have spent the last ten years showing crowds and critics across the world that, despite their name, they are no joke.
And the band’s fifth album, Binge & Purgatory (Century Media), drives this point home with hardcore brutality, like a railroad spike driven into warm flesh.
For the writing of this release, Deez Nuts (now rounded out by Matthew “Realbad” Rogers on guitar, Alex Salinger on drums, and bassist Sean Kennedy) relocated to New York City to conjure up ghosts of the NYHC movement, and it shows. But Binge & Purgatory is more than that, and JJ nails it when he describes the general sound as, “Refused meets Madball meets Pantera meets No Warning.”
While the minute-long almost shoegaze opener of ‘Binge’ may make you tilt your head, don’t worry, you’ll soon be banging it. Those next two tracks, the pummeling ‘Purgatory’ and ‘Antidote’, are built for moshpits, but feel like they are building to something greater. That payoff comes in ‘Commas & Zeroes’, glock-loaded with back and forth gang vocals, a snotty (Sidly) vicious JJ spitting fast and furious and indulging those hip hop influences of his.
The album really hits its stride with ‘Lessons Learned’, featuring a particularly pissed off Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed). Close your eyes and imagine this song being performed live. Chaos.
And then there’s ‘Carried By Six’, a thirty-second rager with a unique and clever way of referencing the extremes of death or jail, in which JJ shouts, “Carried by six or judged by twelve, I fucking hope you find your place in hell.” This is the kind of song you’ll listen to on repeat a few times before moving onto the addictive ‘Cakewalk’, the pure violence of ‘Hedonistic Wasteland’, the super catchy Rancid-meets-early-Prong of ‘Remedy’.
Get on Deez Nuts. You’ll go home satisfied.
7.5/10
JASON KOROLENKO