Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals in Redneck-Haiku Pajamas

Hella's seven-track Total Bugs Bunny on Wild Bass EP herky-jerks like a massive animation cellular breakdown—imagine Woody Woodpecker's electrocution lit by a strobe light. It's great cartoon-rock in the tradition of Kiss's Love Gun (or Spice World, but that's cartoon-pop)—the soundtrack of a kid's reaction at first sight of FAO Schwarz or the world's biggest frozen pizza. Especially if that kid is Sonic Youth youth Coco Hayley Gordon Moore, whom guitarist Spencer Seim and drummer Zach Hill guard with life and flailing limb on "Koko.B.Ware" (name misspelled cuz these things can't be too obvious), all sour-candy synth tones and pitter-pattering pajamaed feet fleeing Vincent Fisher Price organ groans.

photo: Mark Hines

What's up, Dog?

Details

Hella
Total Bugs Bunny on Wild Bass
Narnack

Related Content

• TAP TAP REVENGE
  September 28, 2011
• The Grammys' 53 Record Of The Year Winners, In Order
  February 8, 2012
• Live: Lee Ranaldo Plays It Straight At Glasslands
  December 19, 2011
• 'Silent Films/Live Guitars' w/ Kaki King+Lee Ranaldo
  January 4, 2012
• Someday, New York May Be Home to a Kiss Coffeehouse
  August 17, 2011

More About

• Woody Woodpecker
• Bugs Bunny
• Zach Hill
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Cartoons and Animation

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: (Sent out every Thursday) Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

On Total Bugs, Hella desert the tuneful stop-start buttlock of last year's magnificent Hold Your Horse Is. Which would seem a mistake if the band didn't sublimate their Top 40 melodies (the beginning of the astounding "Who Ray" could easily be Norah Jones) deeper inside their claptrap rhythms and redneck-haiku song titles. This is the musical equivalent of moving off the grid, but then again the intro to "Your DJ Children" recalls Panjabi MC's "Beware of the Boys," so the compound ain't without battery-powered radios. Or, apparently, the Cartoon Network.