Eargasm
THUNDERLIP >> THE PROPHECY.
LUCID 2007

Seeing Thunderlip play for the very first time this October at Fest VI -- the largest, most necessary gathering of East Coast indie rock acts and ne'er-do-well thrash bands this side of Hell's Seventh Circle -- I have to admit, I was a bit petrified. Not by their speed, not by their volume, not by their hyperkinetic writhing. But by lead singer Charge Kruiser's saliva. You see, he does this trick where he lets his spit descend several feet, sometimes almost touching the floor, before inhaling the stream back up into his mouth and bursting into the next verse. It's fucking gross. It's fucking great. 

This Wilmington, NC, quintet has graced many a surf video over the past few years -- their apocalyptic, you-sold-my-baby shrieks and Mack-10 guitar riffs making them a no-brainer when choosing to score the gnarliest video parts. Just try and picture... shit, I dunno, Cormican indy-grabbing and rodeo flipping his way through a crowded, red-tide session at Ponce Inlet during a hailstorm. That's Thunderlip. Just like close hometown buds ASG, they easily fit under the Southern metal tag, the undeniable influences of Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and Thin Lizzy bubbling to the surface like an unstable volcano. But Thunderlip's rage-til-you-implode live spectacle transcends their rep as the perfect surf video score. Basically, if you haven't seen these guys do their thing live, you just ain't getting the bang for your buck. Guitarists James Yopp and John Manning play like a pair of possessed Beetlejuices, while Kruiser is regularly known to prance around the stage in a dress, mask, or cape. And the sound itself strikes the collective ear like a Tarantino film -- adolescent enough to be really, really fun while nurturing an inherent fondness of well-balanced creative depth. Like a Nobel Prize-winning physicist performing his own lobotomy before hitting up Vegas with a VW bus full of strippers, Thunderlip embraces chaos while also sounding... kind of mature.  

Then you get spit on. By Matt Pruett