A new U.S. label affiliation with the normally rather gothy Season of Mist label, as well as the lack of one of the Australian group's usual cheerfully vulgar album titles, suggests that this self-titled release is perhaps a more "grown-up" and "tasteful" album. Fat chance: if anything,
Blood Duster is the group's most gleefully tasteless release yet, combining dead-on potshots at the mainstream punk scene (the almost
Dickies-like "IWannaDoItWithADonna," "66.6ONYOURFMDIAL," and the anti-
Avril Lavigne blurt "Sk8ergrrl") and song titles and themes swiped from
G.G. Allin,
the Beatles, and
AC/DC with the usual constipated
Muppet grindcore vocals and a greater than average devotion to the good old faster-and-louder ethos. It may not win them any new fans, but this is
Blood Duster's best album by some distance. ~ Stewart Mason