I’ve been following England’s Death Threat Cassette for about a decade now. Death Threat Cassette rose from the ashes of Jack Endino produced grunge influenced band Solanoid – singer Lee Pecqueur gone solo. A one-man band, this is truly bedroom rock. And yet – the quality of these Death Threat Cassette albums is nothing to sneer at. The albums still feel imbued to a bit of the Seattle sound whilst adding in elements of country, hip hop, and whatever else comes to mind for Lee. Each album provides an exhilarating listen and demand repeat spins from the listener. After a brief period of inactivity, Death Threat Cassette released their 3rd album, Use Your Delusion in early 2021. The 4th album was just released a few weeks ago – barely a year later. Infinite Trick Pony delivers the goods in spades, with a few unexpected diversions.
Lee.i.am opens with a splash of synth and plaintive, soulful vocals. Before devolving (or is that evolving) into spit rapped verses. A statement of intent and a wonderful opening number. Pea & Ham is one of the singles from the album and it is a perfect encapsulation of what makes the Death Threat Cassette project so great. Ridiculously funny title, gut crunching guitars, and is that a twang? Perfect. Hell No! might be the answer to Beck’s Hell Yes that we didn’t know we needed. Layered vocals with the song title repeated in response to Lee’s lyrics “Motherfuckas wanna waste my time? / Hell No!.” So good, one of my favorites on the album. Jalopy uses a wordless chant as the intro before having that repeat in the background while Lee sings over top. It’s a neat trick and really ties the disparate elements of the song together. Headlights is a more straightforward rocker, piano fading into crunching guitar. The song builds towards an anthemic chorus, worthy of raising lighters, er, cellphones, at a show. Halloween Ends concludes the album with a song inspired by the slasher film series. It’s moody, catchy, and perfect. The Bandcamp version of the album comes with a whopping 9 bonus tracks – songs that were released as part of Death Threat Cassette’s YouTube series. They should be viewed as separate from the album. The quality is high on all of these songs, though they have different vibes from the album tracks proper. Of these, I like Ready For The Summer, SeXXX Tape, Sharon Stoned, The Manual, and of course The Sucks To Be You Theme song.
Already there are rumblings of new Death Threat Cassette recordings forthcoming. I’d highly recommend checking out their latest album and support this incredible artist. You can follow their Bandcamp site / offerings here.
Verdict: Feel Good Hit of the Spring
For fans of: Babybird, Television Personalities, Nirvana, Mudhoney, East River Pipe
Tracks:
- Lee.i.am
- Jean Claude Seagal
- Pea & Ham
- Hell No!
- Piss Wet Through
- Shaking a Wankers Hand
- Jalopy
- I Don’t Want to be the Guy That Has to Tell Himself that he’s Fucked
- Yestereve
- Headlights
- Dance Motherfucker
- Halloween Ends