Harvey Milk are the best fucking metal band on the planet. Though many asshole music critics desperate to pigeonhole even the most unclassifiable of bands have compared them to other "sludge metal" acts like the Melvins, who they kinda sound like sometimes, and Neurosis, who they don't resemble at all, the Milk are a singular entity unto themselves. After all, what other metal band could have performed a live set consisting solely of REM's Reckoning, and another comprised entirely of Hank Williams tunes, and also have released this utter mindfuck of a record? Well, alright, I'm sure the Melvins could have done so as well, but I promise you, Harvey Milk sounds as little like them as a band that falls under the same umbrella of genre classification possibly could. I mean, Meshuggah and Dream Theater are both ostensibly "prog-metal", but how often are those bands compared to one another, except to say, "Meshuggah sounds nothing like Dream Theater"?
Alright, poorly-structured rant over. Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men is, as I said earlier, an utter mindfuck of a record. It is a double album encompassing epic-in-both-scope-and-awesomeness sludge/post-metal, 16 RPM classic rock, avant-garde meanderings, a Leonard Cohen cover, percussion pieces (guitarist/vocalist Creston Spiers majored in percussion at the University of Georgia at Athens) and Swans-as-garage-band ballads, generally featuring Spiers' froggy howl/croon and massive guitar, Stephen Tanner's presumably-strung-with-bridge-cables bass, and Paul Trudeau's Neanderthal-mathematician drumming. The whole thing lasts over 70 minutes and you have to pay really close attention, but it's goddamn well worth it, you fucking ADHD baby. Get with the program and worship Harvey Milk, especially this album, their magnum opus as far as I can tell, or I will fucking find you (says the guy who's missing half their catalog, but I MEAN WHAT I SAY, FUCKER!!!)
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