Starvin Hungry, Cold Burns
Loud, lurching, off-kilter post-punk — not for the timid
Starvin 'Hungry is a redundantly monikered post-punk hard rock quartet from Montreal who don't sing in French, though for English-speaking customers they might as well. Even John Milchem's most hookfully mannered-and-sarcastic, snarled-through-nose slogans on Cold Burns— i.e., ones that go "make that chicken fly" and "let me commit my crime" and "I hate you P.B." — don't offer much coherence or context. But luckily, the record's got enough loud, lurching, frantic off-kilter energy that its dearth of verbal acuity doesn't really hurt matters. If you spent any significant span of your '80s clearing out brain cobwebs to vinyl by the The Celibate Rifles, Lime Spiders, Scratch Acid, Three Johns and/or Janitors, or ever wished you did, Cold Burns is something to check out.
For more mainstream reference points, consider the following, for starters: Muffled Ian Astbury "Love Removal Machine" low notes leaping into David Johansen high notes atop "Fat Bottomed Girls" groove ("Ghost Witness"); Standells/Music Machine nuggetry toppling over itself ("The Hammer"); AC/DC when they knew how to boogie (the afore-referenced "P.B.") That last number, which concludes the set, valiantly switches betwixt fast/slow, loud/soft, and love/hate for five fruitful minutes, setting the album's wordiest rants to its noisiest guitar solo, then climaxing with feedback. It is not for the timid.
