Let’s get this out of the way: FatTooth’s debut album is kind of a wreck. The riffs are warmed over like a tin of Dinty Moore beef stew and the songs sound like a bad fourth-generation dub of The Sex Pistols. Mixing Green Jelly, The Meatmen and cock rock is either an act of bravery or insanity, depending on your point of view.

A critic is tempted to use words like “abysmal” and “juvenile” when assessing this album. However, someone on the first leg of a whisky bender or an impressionable teen who has only heard his uncle’s copy of Theatre of Pain would likely consider it life-changing. Despite its obvious flaws, some listeners will be drawn to Fattooth like self-aware cinephiles are drawn to Ed Wood’s films. This album may be an aberration — the musical equivalent of Wood’s clunker Orgy Of The Dead — but there is an underlying charm and utter lack of self-awareness here that is captivating.

First, a bit about FatTooth. The band is from Canada and headed up by a dude who calls himself Hucifer. He looks like combination of Marilyn Manson and King Diamond, complete with a megaphone and a top hat (think bad Smells Like Children-era flashbacks). Drummer Gene Hoglan, who also lends his talents to cartoon rockers Dethklok and Zimmer’s Hole, played on this recording but doesn’t tour with the band. From the pictures I’ve seen their live shows look like a bad night at the Exotic Erotic ball.

FatTooth mines turf that The Mentors plowed years ago; their music is essentially critic-proof and traffics in glorious, puerile humor. Do you think El Duce cared what a critic thought about “Sandwich Of Love”? Nope, he wiped the Cheez-Wiz off his beard, put on his stinky executioner’s hood and adjusted his ample gut behind the drum kit. The only time he ever engaged with critics was when he yelled at plump housewives on “Geraldo.” Fattooth opens their album with the sound of urination and wrote a song called “Bacteria” about the glories of germs: “I ate the mystery meat and my gut began to roll…Well I don’t think I”ll ever need a colonic, but it was that week that I heard about the bubonic plague.” Do you think they are at all concerned with a review or want to make wr iter self-flagellate?

I’m not going to lie and say that you need to hear this because it’s not all that great. Perhaps FatTooth will end up like GWAR; no one plays their albums much in their down time, but they quickly get a ticket when the circus rolls into town.

[Visit the band's website]

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