Zach Hill + Mick Barr – Volume 2 – Rock Is Hell Records [Album Review]

It’s hard to believe I’ve been following Zach Hill fanatically for about 7 years now, ever since that Locust show where Hella first turned me on to brutal prog.

What’s more, I can’t think of a single Hill-related release I dislike. Each one of them, from the discombobulated, amelodic chirping of Nervous Cop, Damsel and The Smokers to the more melodic intentions of The Ladies, Bygones and Chll Pll, is a necessary part of a progression.

The only question, really, is where this progression is leading. Is Hill simply trying to jam with every able-bodied improv guitarist and underground vocalist in America? 

I, personally, don’t think so. To me, Hill’s recorded works so far have seen a drummer trying desperately to meld melody with melee. Many of his experimentations so far have pitted an out-sound prodigy against performers with perhaps less talent but better Pop sense, all in the name of producing an album Normal People might actually like. 

And, with each new forage, Hill is coming closer and closer to achieving that once-unthinkable goal of perfecting a nine-armed percussion onslaught that can charm you with its melodic skill.

Volume 2, which once again sees Hill and Mick Barr — Octis, Orthrelm, etc. — form a hellish tandem, is not one of these melodic projects. Far from attempting something new and original, 2 makes its aims simple from the get-go: To SHRED-SHRED-SHRED like a cook with huge head o’ lettuce and a shiny metal countertop. 

If you think Hill indulgent, then, Volume 2 is not for you; wait until his record with Wavves comes out. If you, conversely, gobble up everything the poly-limbed drummer does with aplomb, go ahead and stack this atop your mountain of vinyl.

What I really like about Volume 2 is its relentlessness and its surprising inventiveness in the face of such brutal consistency. 2 sounds a lot like Shred Earthship, but there’s a death-metal sequence near the beginning that breaks things up a bit, not to mention jamming so ferocious it’ll latch onto your ear and rip it off like a junkyard Rott.

 Sure, I get lost in the litany of fret-taps and slides and runs and glides like everyone else, but it’s not about each individual fill or solo as much as it is about the lumbering monster they create. 

And you’d better be ready to swallow every inch of girth the duo have to offer; 2 fills up both sides of vinyl to the edge, leaving the listener with little options but to deep-throat the entire apparatus.