“A serious condition with respiratory failure that usually requires hospitalization and intensive care.”
“Causes: Breathing in smoke or poisonous chemicals. Breathing in stomach contents while throwing up (aspiration). Near drowning. Pneumonia.”
Search for the phrase “Wet Lungs”, and this is the type of information you’re going to find. No cliché album reviews, dick-sucking summaries praising how the band “totally fucking shreds”, or music videos followed by lowest common denominator teenage YouTube comments about what qualifies as music or who in the thread is “such a faggot”. No, look up Wet Lungs and you’ll get nothing but ominous medical jargon and threats of fatality— and, really, it’s the perfect ode to the band and its blunt, matter-of-fact brutality.
There is something enigmatic about the band; Frankenstein’s latest monster made up of equal parts The Roller, The Locust, utter mayhem, and pinpoint precision. Part of the obscurity might stem from the fact that Wet Lungs’ presence has been relatively transient, breathing diseased life into the Austin, TX hardcore/metal scene beginning in 2013 and indefinitely incapacitated by 2014. Until Three One G’s digital release of previously stowed away tracks, less than nine minutes of music were available to the public by way of a self-titled 7”, every second a pendulum hurtling between Pete Brown’s heavy sludge-then-grind guitar riffs, Mike Morowitz’ infernal snarls, and intensified tenfold by diabolical bursts of Gabe Serbian’s signature machine-gun drumming.
Three One G’s release of the “Vile Hobbies” EP reveals tracks in the same vein as their previous release in terms of length and overall intensity, but interspersed with everything from extraterrestrial guitar distortion at the outset of opening track “Space Garbage”, to malevolent surf style on the aptly titled “Beach Impediment”. Tracks are all vim and vigor, succinct sonic whirlwinds clocking in at around 1:30 at most.
Still, Wet Lungs have no trouble getting their point across in short spans of time. Even with limited material for audiences to diagnose, the message is clear, and their outlook is dire.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Space Garbage
2. Stay Bent
3. Drug Skeleton
4. Overachiever
5. Beach Impediment (Surfin’Tsunami)
6. Near Meth Experience
7. Vile Hobbies