A glance at the résumés of Hash Redactor’s members might seed certain expectations. But with their debut full-length, Drecksound, the band - fronted by guitarist Alec McIntyre of Ex-Cult, featuring Nots rhythm warriors Meredith Lones on bass and Charlotte Watson on drums, and rounded off by George Williford(stringed instrumentalist of various Memphis acts) on second guitar―banishes any residual side-project status.

Though Drecksound at times evokes certain mini-masterpieces of recent history, like The Country Teasers’ Destroy All Human Life, or labelmates Spray Paint’s Feel the Clamps, it ventures into musical territorytethered neither to its own lineage, nor to that of the current era...a clattering, distorted oasis in the sleek digital desert of the late twenty-teens.

McIntyre and Williford’s guitar interplay draws from a rundown of usual and unusual suspects in the tightcorner of avant-punk guitar work, conjuring some free-association that includes: Marquee Moon, an imaginary-electric John Fahey, the playing on Ornette Coleman’s mid-70s Body Meta and Dancing In Your Head, prime-era Flesheaters, plus the first two Meat Puppets albums. Without anything resembling traditional leads, guitars snake in and out and around Lones’s bass lines, which alternate between slinky,ohrwurm hooks and steel-cable raw power. All of this is locked together by Watson’s visceral swing. It doesn’t feel controversial to claim that the duo of Watson and Lones constitutes one of the best rhythm sections to be heard anywhere in contemporary punk music. Taken as a whole, the songs possess the character of drunken koans—belabored jokes that, peeling away layers of churning riff and gnarled hook, possess some kind of ultimate truth, albeit a cheeky one.

After playing out heavy in 2018 with a refined live show, a four-song demo, and several Gonerfest appearances under their belt, Drecksound was cut entirely at home on a borrowed 8-track cassette machine.Matt Qualls of Memphis’ Young Avenue Sound mixed the resulting deranged mess into its final form which Goner Records and Upset The Rhythm have teamed up to release.