Bunnygrunt, 'Lady, You Just Got Von Damaged!'

Jeff Nations
Special to Metromix

Bunnygrunt's latest release is a 3-song, 45rpm record entitled Lady, You Just Got Von Damaged! (Eric Von Damage is Bunnygrunt's drummer). Upon first hearing the tracks on this release, my initial reaction is, "What the hell is this?". My first note: The songs (one of which is a cover by an old local group called Crime Squad) are given no time to develop. The longest song on here is 2:40. The other two are under two minutes. They all immediately dive into verses with little build-up and nothing to anticipate. They all end abruptly where the listener would expect a bridge or some kind of change. There's nothing very ear-grabbing going on either, no interesting choruses, no lead guitar work and no catchy melodies or harmonies.

The second thing I notice is the lack of cohesiveness among the musicians. For being a band that's been together, in various incarnations, since '93 you'd think they'd be a tight, well-oiled unit but this album makes Bunnygrunt sound like a new garage band who needs a LOT more practice and whose songs need a LOT more polish. Most of the background vocals are mostly sung by one male voice whose notes seem to waver behind the female lead. Lead vocalist Karen Reid lacks power behind her voice and nothing she is doing will blow your mind.

The production, which is sub-par, suits the style of music, I guess. All the guitar tones are the same: Dry, gritty clean and dirty tones which work for the type of playing going on. The drums are dry and somewhat noisy in spots and you almost don't even realize that there's a bass on the recording. Is the music itself bad? No. The songs just need a lot more development and inspiration. There's nothing new and different about them. The band needs to be tighter as a whole and the vocalists need to work on voice control.

Maybe the whole sloppy performance, low quality production sound is exactly what Bunnygrunt is going for but for a band that has put in close to 20 years of work and had a song featured in a major motion picture, I would expect they'd hold themselves to higher standards. Then again the fact that they've had a song in a Hollywood film (Bad Santa, if you're wondering) and they're still a local underground act certainly says something. Perhaps Bunnygrunt isn't concerned with impressing anyone. If that's the case, they hit the nail on the head with this record.