Album Review: Rollin’ Coal with the Phat Quarters, by Soylent Haggis
Pretty much everyone is unfamiliar with the experimental Midwestern-Slavic speed-death-sludge-hypermetal collective Soylent Haggis, so the news that their next release would be a bluegrass collaboration with the Amish folk-hiphop group Phat Quarters went almost completely unremarked upon by those who don’t feel like Sunn O)))) is too clean and quiet or for whom Norwegian death metal is sufficiently Satanic (Soylent Haggis has rejected these stances as a matter of principle).
Our last report on Soylent Haggis had them (according to the confused accounts of the few surviving witnesses) disappearing into the foothills of the Pamirs in a surplus BTR-60 armored personnel carrier, vowing to liberate the people of Kzhngnolia from Russian oppression by using the heaviest of all heavy metal, a style which they referred to as “depleted uranium” (Editor’s note: there is no such place as Kzhngnolia).
Kzhngnolia presumably liberated and out of the clutches of the FSB, Soylent Haggis has reappeared, apparently, and no doubt illegally, somewhere in North America, with a deep hunger for roots music (and, apparently, squirrel). Further compounding this unwelcome news is the fact the the group have announced a collaboration with Phat Quarters, who not only reject all technology but have such offensive lyrics that they have prompted an ecumenical conference including the Amish Council of Elders, Pope Francis, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, to issue a joint statement bringing down the anathema and stating that “The Antichrist has got nothing on these creeps.” With that understood, an acoustic collaboration with Soylent Haggis is not only understandable but is as inevitable as the heat death at the end of the universe. So when we received our review copy of Rollin’ Coal With The Phat Quarters, we were dismayed, but not surprised.
Long and bitter experience has taught us to not simply open a case and put the CD into a player. If it’s a Soylent Haggis album this could result in anything from a powerful electromagnetic pulse to a spray of finely ground anthrax. Our forensic analysis was thorough, but mostly fruitless. The padded envelope had no return address, no fingerprints, and no explosives residue. The “Mailed from ZIP Code 17534” postmark was of course suggestive in many ways (this postcode includes Intercourse, Pennsylvania), but could have been a ruse. We’ll skip the detailed description of how we borrowed a bomb squad robot to open the envelope from a presumably-safe distance and found the clear jewel case and unmarked CD-R also free of fingerprints. And the only liner notes stated simply “ROLLIN’ COAL WITH PHAT QUARTERS // SOYLENT HAGGIS \\ GBY” — in a particularly nasty 19.5 point pixelated rendering of Comic Sans.
Long and bitter experience also taught us that our first listen to any Soylent Haggis album should be through a broad-coverage spectrum analyzer and without the speakers connected. Much to our surprise there was no evidence of attempts to employ the subsonic “brown sound” frequencies, nor were there ear-splitting and speaker-destroying blasts of high-frequency pseudorandom noise inserted into the, ah, music; nor were there any attempts to summon demonic entities by using the cursed tritone. This result had us questioning whether we really had a Soylent Haggis album on our hands at all, or whether this was a particularly clumsy fake. Nevertheless our interest was piqued. As was our fight-or-flight response.
We hooked up our speakers (adding a very-fast-response limiter in the signal chain because who knows, maybe they can spoof our frequency analyzer), and had a listen. After 30 seconds or so, we were convinced; yes, this is in fact a genuine Soylent Haggis album. We are so very sorry.
The album consists of 12 tracks, each of which is exactly two minutes and fifty seconds long (this is a very Soylent Haggis stunt, and yes, eyes were rolled). 11 of the tracks are, surprisingly, in a fairly traditional but innovative style, employing fiddle, banjo, balalaika, washtub bass, washboard, and what our forensic anthropologists are fairly sure is a human femur flute. Vocals, from the members of Phat Quarters, are all in a very East Coast call-and-response rap style. The twelfth track is, unsurprisingly, a recording of automatic weapons fire (we’re fairly sure this is 7.62mm rounds from an AK-74 being used to splinter and destroy the instruments used in recording the album). All of the tracks seem to be live single-take recordings with no overdubs or multiple-microphone mixing. The recording is of very primitive quality and seems to have been done on wax cylinders before being transferred to digital.
What is surprising about this album is the lyrical content. While the first track (unnamed, but presumably the title track) is mostly concerned with creative ways to eviscerate the redneck dudes that drive the pickup trucks that have the special valves that allow their engines to blow giant clouds of black smoke (called “rollin’ coal”), the remainder of the album is mainly concerned with how traditional Amish values of simple living, extreme chastity, and dedication to sustainable agriculture are essential to the survival of civilization, and how Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin will be forever locked in a carnal embrace while being roasted over a coal furnace in the depths of Hell. Very bipartisan of them. The album passes convivially without any terrifying revelations or ominous sense of dread, until the pleasant relaxation is relieved by the violent cacophony of the final track.
In short: this is, perhaps, the least unlistenable of all Soylent Haggis or Phat Quarters albums, and while it lacks the unexpected impact of Great Boris Yeltsin! or the the breathtaking insouciance of Chuffed Ivan, it is a worthy addition to their reprehensible catalog. If you’re very unlucky you could hear this on a streaming service or if someone sends you the CD pretending it’s a Taylor Swift record or something. Good luck avoiding this one.
