reviews
Apparently, Frank Iero is not okay
Leathermouth - XOAlternative Press - Editorial Intern on 6/1/09 @ 1:20 PM - altpress.com
For the ultimate test of My Chemical Romance's seemingly inescapable ubiquity, stay tuned to MySpace pages and message boards everywhere. When XO, the debut from MCR guitarist Frank Iero's hardcore-punk side project Leathermouth, reaches the masses, you'll surely start seeing a gazillion comments from teenage girls raving, "OMG! Frank is sooooo hot! I love Leathermouth!" Were this record the product of just about anyone not involved with MCR, you could safely wager that most of said fans would run away from XO as fast as humanly possible with their fingers wedged in their ears.
Leathermouth, who officially consist only of Iero on vocals and Rob Hughes on guitar, specialize in a particularly punishing form of hardcore that combines sludgy doom metal and harsh grindcore, topped off by Iero's ferocious screams and often twisted, eyebrow-raising lyrics. Speed and fury are the name of the game here, and thus none of the album's 10 tracks break the three-minute mark (the disc's total running time is just over 21 minutes). While Leathermouth certainly aren't reinventing the wheel by any means, songs with names like "I Am Going To Kill The President Of The United States Of America" and "Your Friends Are Full Of Shit" are far from dull, while XO's sheer brutality and shock value alone make the record the complete anti-My Chem experience, perfect for driving around with a corpse stashed in your trunk. (EPITAPH; epitaph.com) Brendan Manley
ROCKS LIKE:
The Bronx's The Bronx (I)
High On Fire's Blessed Black Wings
Pig Destroyer's Phantom Limb
IN-STORE SESSION WITH VOCALIST FRANK IERO
Leathermouth are your forum to vent. What's got you so angry?
Just everyday life, and things that affect us that people want to pretend don't exist; feelings of isolation and depression, and the way the world is going. There are other things, too: "Catch Me If You Can" is based on the letters written by Jack the Ripper. It's basically about cutting up girls, which is always fun. [Laughs.] A lot of the songs seem to be about killing girls.
What's the story behind "5th Period Massacre"?
Kids are killing each other in school, and people are very quick to condemn the entertainment industry, or the parents or the kids themselves, who must be "off." I'm not saying those aren't some of the reasons, but no one talks about the little fucking prick who calls the kid a "faggot" or beats him up everyday, so he sees no way out other than going home and getting his father's gun.
How about "Sunsets Are For Muggings"?
It's about going to see my psychiatrist. Every appointment I had was at night, around sunset. It's about taking all the pills to make yourself better, yet never feeling normal, and knowing that everything you're saying is going in one ear and out the other. I've definitely had to deal with mental illness in my family; that's a very personal thing that I deal with on a daily basis. "Sunsets" is my way of saying that no one is really looking out for you but yourself, and you have to consider that no one fucking cares.
Will teenage girls into My Chem be horrified?
That's the funny part. "Catch Me," for example, has some pretty harsh lyrics about women. The last half of the song says, "A gift from God doing the Devil's crimes/I'll set shit right one whore at a time." Watching a good handful of little girls singing that line with you is a little weird, and really fucking funny. The things that make me laugh are things that are horrendously awful, [like] people falling down or getting attacked by animals. If I can have girls singing back about cutting themselves up or setting themselves on fire, that's pretty much a good show.
Some people will say, "My Chem is huge. What's this guy's problem?"
There are a million things I can say are great about my life, and a million things that really fucking suck. I can't explain why I have a problem with depression or anxiety; I don't know, and nobody can tell me why, either. I just do what I can to stay sane on a daily basis, and [Leathermouth] are one of those things that help me, getting it all out on a record, and playing shows. The first tour we did was really refreshing, exhausting and cathartic, and I wasn't pissed off anymore. Now that I've been home for a while, all that hate has built up again, and I think I need to do a couple more shows. [BM]
Official Website: http://www.leathermouth.com/
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