Before you delve into their sophomore album Epic Loads, seminal Iowa City pot rock visionaries The Tanks would like you to know that they underwent arduous times at Flat Black Studios: not only was the album recorded with microphones of all devices, but the band ran out of Pringles 10 minutes inward, and the room they recorded in was dark, so please bear with them. Why else would the title be so open-ended? Epic Loads of what? It could go either way, depending on how much sympathy you're willing to offer.
The Tanks are in Roomrunner's self-assigned league of bunge and chunch, though where Roomrunner could be heralded as the more liberal second coming of Nirvana's hook-laden animosity, The Tanks are closer to the grunge champions' heavier cousins in The Jesus Lizard. Kevin Koppes slovenly narrating "Not the foggiest notion of how I ended up here / how I got this big knot on the back of my head?" mirrors a typical tour story by David Yow, but rather than exchanging with thorny guitar lines his drawl saunters over a bass-driven barrage.
Epic Loads is an amalgam of grit in various shades, from the head-in-a-vice tension of noise rock to the unwavering stamina of its forefathers in hardcore. On the punchy "Dandruff Genius" they jump from drunken verses to a tight-knit, anthemic chorus, the anxious introduction of "I Can't Believe I Broke Edge Again" is met with Southern-fried pummel, and the onslaught slowing to a lurch on "Natural Man vs. Unnatural Boy" is nothing short of impeccable. They even travel 25 years back in time for "Thanks But No Thanks"'s crossover salvo.
Given their limited instrumental palette of bass and drums, dynamics are at the root of Epic Loads. When The Tanks transition from one foray to another is in plain sight, but they manage to foil expectations, namely in how the note-bending pull of "Seductive in Camo" snaps into a DFA1979-like groove. Epic Loads is an exercise in controlled chaos, tactful bombardment, and would let up a fistfight only to return with a crowbar.
[Stream/Buy Epic Loads from The Tanks]
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