Mesa Cosa "Infernal Cakewalk"

I guess I would describe this as Mexican-influenced garage fuzz armageddon. It's a bit like a mix of whacked out '60s satanism and punkish garage-rock, there's almost something evil going on underneath it all.

Anyway, Mesa Cosa are a five-piece band from Melbourne, and this 10" EP is their second release (after a demo casette last year). I love this line from their media spiel...

The Infernal Cakewalk EP captures Mesa Cosa’s “the Stooges walk into a Tequila bar” live attitude in a “hey, we put out a record!” kind of way

LOL, great stuff.

I listened to this a lot over the last week, and whilst I'm not really a fan of lo-fi production or distorted vocals, I definitely got a real smash-it-out party vibe from it. The best track is easily the first one (666), it just sounds a lot clearer than some of the looser later tracks and it really pumps in a great sing-along way. The other highlights are the songs Shoplifter (which seems to cheekily borrow from The Romantics' What I Like About You) and Hijo Del Mal.

There's some saxaphone and a few other things happening in the songs but as the EP aims for a pseudo-'authentic' '60s record sound some of the layers unfortunately get a little lost in the high-end chaos (the emphasis seems to be on crash cymbals and guitar). I get the impression that this would be a great band to see live, and if you're a collector of garage rock band vinyl then this is a must.

http://mesacosa.tumblr.com/