(Amphetamine Reptile, 1990)So what’s the deal with that “Featuring Tom Hazelmyer” thingy scrawled across the cover? I’d long assumed that he was just “featured” as an additional player on the disc, but I recently found out that I was WRONG. Oh how wrong I was. Yep, according to an informative interview with Mr. AmRep himself, he was temporarily standing in as THE guitarist for Killdozer while Bill Hobson was out on paternity leave, and during tour rehearsals there happened to occur a recording session that produced the find-em-nowhere-else songs on this single. So that’s interesting. As is this: while the addition of Hazelmyer hardly turns the band into Halo of Flies, there’s more liveliness and trebly elasticity on here than on any Killdozer release in many a moon. Crotch-oriented lyrics on both sides and some floor-rattling guitar on “Short Eyes” offer further guffaws and thrills, but, while a minor (and necessary) departure from the past, neither song is quite up to the sky-high thump-skree standards previously established by the band. Now, don’t get me wrong; I like this record plenty. It’s just that I know Twelve Point Buck, and this is no Twelve Point Buck.
