WARMER MILKS - LET YOUR FRIENDS IN REVIEWS Blogstitude Two long tracks on the new Warmer Milks alb; first one is more of that Radish on Light dirge/doom/punk sickness, but where the songs on that album were very carefully developed, this feels like one big sprawled-out fuck-it-all go-for-broke jam. Very heavy and satistfying, lots of sick singing. The second song is more of a free-form fuck-around, no bombastic dirge is attempted as the band struggles with weird guitar strum applications kept deliberately unfocused. First 'side' is great, second 'side' is more enticing than it sounds like it should be. Interesting quartet lineup too, Turner and Backus from the 'traditional' WM lineup plus Shawn McMillen (Ash Castles on the Ghost Coast, Friday Group, Iron Kite) and Paul Oldham (brother of Will).... Crucial Blast Let Your Friends In is the first album from Warmer Milks that I've checked out. It just came out at the end of 2007 on Release The Bats, and their description of it piqued my interest. I knew that they had an album out on Troubleman called Radish On Light but was under the impression that Warmer Milks were some sort of weirdo pysch rock band, based on the reviews I had come across and the general references that I was hearing whenever someone mentioned their music. But then Release The Bats announced the release of this new disc and threw around words like "skate punk" and "black metal", and I'm wondering what's going on. The two songs that make up Let Your Friends In are long, like 14-16 minutes long, and they're definitely weird, and certainly psychedelic, but their also way heavier and noisier than I was expecting. The heavier sounds on here aren't all that blackened, but there's something vicious going on with the first half of this album. The first song "The Ripple Children/The Jaunting" starts off with a series of mangled analogue tape collage loops that morphs into abrasive electronic noise that sounds like it was created by somebody fucking around with a malfunctioning tape recorder, with tape speed sounds and warbling tones, then a lone male voice appears for a minute and the track suddenly shifts into a hypnotic, sludgy psych rock jam. Tons of flanger and other effects poured over a repetitious bass riff while cymbal crashes ring out in the back, the instruments slowly picking up speed as they come together, and then launch into something that sounds like the old Bay Area crust band Filth gone krautrock. This is pretty ripping - there's harsh, crusty as fuck shrieks, a single gnarly three-chord riff bashed out over and over, sloppy but propulsive drumming, trippy effects everywhere. Then either some kind of horn or electronic noises that sound like a horn come in, and the band breaks down into a mess of freeform jamming, distorted guitar noise, wailing stoner howls, and druggy FX. This is absolutely not what I was expecting from these guys...psychedelic kraut-crust? Awesome. The second jam is called "The Wanderer", and while it's unfurls a pretty thick fug of axe noise, spaced out riffing and lsd-laced electronic fuckery, it's a more subdued and stoned follow up. No drums appear in this meltdown, and I suppose it's closer to the sound I originally heard in my head when I was thinking about what Warmer Milks were going to sound like...unspooling cassette tape flowing into puddles of muddy cosmic murk, echoing blues notes rising up off of a rusted out electric guitar by someone with severe rigor mortis, ghostly voices wandering around aimlessly through the free-floating clouds of tape collage and bass notes. Kinda along the lines of some of the Sunburned Hand Of The Man stuff that I've heard, a creepy, dreamlike psychedelic ooze. Let Your Friends In was released in a limited edition pressing of 1000 copies, and comes in a full color cardstock wallet with an insert sheet, similiar in design to the recent Nonhorse CD release on Release The Bats. The Fader One band I have had the hardest fucking time trying to figure out is Kentucky’s own Warmer Milks who release their first long player in a minute entitled Let Your Friends In on the Release the Bats label. The first few minutes are a jumble of highly distorted audio collage and bizarre caterwauling. Things settle into a noise-rock heavy dirge of twisted guitars and rumbling distorted bass. There are some terrific, nasty vocals that are almost Black Metal sounding in their miserable far off yells. This is miles away from some of the crappy improv recordings I’ve heard from these guys and their fractured death rock definitely works for these ears. The whole ten-minute riffs breaks down and comes back in three times, ridiculous but awesome fun nonetheless. The second half of the record devolves into the more drooling stoned nonsense that I’ve come to expect from them. But that’s kind of the thing about the Warmer Milks, even though they are wildly inconsistent there’s certainly no formula being adhered to here. I just tend to like them when they are in their more “composed” setting. Vital Weekly Warmer Milks is a new name for me, with the nucleus of Micheal Turner and an ever changing line up. Here he receives help of Paul Oldham, Greg Backus and Shawn David McMillen, who plays a variety of stuff: coffee bass, new kitten, blue phase and mouth breath, tomorrow person crying and schizophrenia. I am quoting the cover here, not losing direction of senses. Since this is my first meeting with the band, it's hard to compare it with earlier recording. Things start out promising with analogue tape collages, but the band soon starts hammering way in a punk rock fashion meeting metal music of whatever nomination - its field that I am not into, so no black/grunge/slow/speed before it. A strange combination of sorts, but in the end, not much my cup of tea. Too much free rock jamming for my taste, and not enough tape manipulations. It seems that there is more in there than what is presented now. The way it sounds now, is that it is recorded and mixed in about the same time it took them to play it. Womblife Zine Some time back I received a sweet package from one Mikey Turner, lead milker in the Warmer Milks, a Lexington, Kentucky ensemble that it's been a great pleasure to watch mature, or should I say devolve, over the last few years. 'Course their debut LP Radish on Light (Troubleman) is a goddamned classic of detuned angst-grunge that bears the weight of a dying world on its shoulders, the resultant stress cracks making it that much more of a harrowing thing of beauty. Then came some lineup shakeups and--shock!--Shawn David McMillen is invited into the fold along with Paul Oldham (as in Will's brother) for the culmination of the mini-album, Let You Friends In on Sweden's revered Release the Bats. Two tracks here, each a side-long plunge into some mighty destroyed psychedelic head-space. Opener "The Ripple, Children/The Jaunting" is the knockout with warped tape-speed madness giving way to a massive cycling sludge mantra that kicks the mud off my boots and makes it dance around like some sort of irate earth spirit. Turner's screeching balls-out death vocals on this song are the shit, easily some of the most harrowing/ visceral/ hilarious exorcizing Ive heard in a good long while. Beautiful. "The Wanderer" on the other hand is a bit more aimless with its Beefheart-on-thorazine lurching rhythm that keeps threatening to pick up steam and kick ass like the first track but never really does. I'm not saying I'm disappointed in this one, more that the first track is a hard act to follow