Lynch Pigs - Cheap Sleaze (Scene Destroyer)

Scum punk is one of my favorite sub-genres. There’s nothing like blasting GG Allin, Antiseen or The Dwarves when in a bad mood. Dukes of Nothing go great with beer and whiskey, and Brainbombs do a great job of offending everybody beyond all expectations. There’s not much to the formula: anger, a genuine dislike of most people and what they represent, and an insatiable desire to vent these feeling to anyone who’ll listen. Simple, right? Unfortunately, Long Island’s Lynch Pigs don’t seem to get it.

The biggest problem with Cheap Sleaze is the unforgivably boring songs. Tired, overused, old-fart ’70s rock riffs repeat over and over, for no apparent reason other than to provide a backdrop for the same lyric to be unnecessarily repeated over and over again. Southern Hostility this ain’t – it’s more like the current pathetic state of The Murder Junkies. Juan Diablo’s weak vocals sound like an accountant trying really hard to sound tough, an image exacerbated by lyrics that try really hard to offend, but wouldn’t shock a soccer mom. When you’re “Hellbent For Tobacco” and telling the schlep in Taco Bell to “Do Your Damn Job” and bragging about your latest “Dine ‘N’ Ditch,” you sound like a spoiled teenager, not an icon of rock’n‘roll sleaze. Oh heavens! There’s a song called “P.C. Cunt!” Who cares? It’s nearly six minutes long, drones on and on and is dull as a rolled-up newspaper.

Listening to Cheap Sleaze is like buying hot sauce with flames and “XXX” printed all over the label and finding out it tastes like ketchup. The only offending done here is in the sheer painful boredom it conjures.