Trash, Not Gate (CD)

New Zealand's Trash are probably best remembered for their drummer Robbie Yeats, of the Dead C and sometimes the Verlaines, though he's strangely credited here as Bo Martack. Trash were a trio fronted by Bruce Blucher, and they fit somewhere between the Dead C's heavy noise focus and King Loser's more classic/garage rock styles. There are definitely melodic songs with vocal melodies and accessible structures, and the guitars often play riffs. Juxtaposed with this almost accessible side, the music is buried under a layer of dirty heaviness, both in the recording and the thick guitar sounds. An influence of Evol era Sonic Youth is obvious, but Trash take it in a more primitive direction, where many other bands (including Sonic Youth themselves) have grown a bit prettier and more sterile in the years since. Not Gate, which is not even clearly the album's title (the cover features the word "GATE" crossed out) dates from 1994, and is the band's second album of three.