Sloppy Meateaters
Forbidden Meat
Orange Peal
To say that I didn’t like Sloppy Meateaters’ first album, Shameless Self-Promotion, would be a gross understatement. Although I’m sure they’d disagree, I’m a pretty nice guy, and rarely am negative to bands that are local/regional to my area (they’re from Rome, Georgia; I’m from Gainesville, Florida). But SME’s lyrics made them sound like bad people. I don’t throw around the terms “sexist” and “homophobe” lightly, but they were entirely appropriate for SME’s debut.
This is better on the lyrical front, but still includes at least one song, “Fat Girls,” that indicates these kids have a lot of growing up to do. The musical style continues in the Blink-wannabe vein, which is now virtually its own sub-genre, but doesn’t do a thing for me. The bass playing is improved, now that the guitarist is not having to play both instruments in the studio, but oddly, the vocals (probably the strongest part of the debut, along with the drumming) have somewhat fallen off, the overall effect being that they seem like they were rushing through the recording process. The production remains good. Shows improvement, but still pretty dismal.
Orange Peal Records, PO Box 15207, Fremont, CA 94539; http://www.sloppymeateaters.com, http://www.orangepeal.com
