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Devin Swank doesn\u2019t thoughts when individuals chortle at Sanguisugabogg. The Columbus, Ohio band\u2019s frontman (and occasional standup comedian) leans laborious into the class-clown facet of demise metallic. When Queen Elizabeth II died in September, he devoted fan favourite \u201cDead As Shit\u201d to her onstage, and he commonly introduces \u201cDragged By A Truck\u201d as \u201ca song about being dragged by a fuckin\u2019 truck.\u201d He runs Sanguisugabogg\u2019s meme-poisoned, self-deprecating Instagram account, and when social media shit-talkers ragged on the band\u2019s ever-growing inventory of T-shirt designs, he modified their Encylopaedia Metallum style to \u201cmerchcore.\u201d Even his gore-obsessed lyrics are extra slapstick than scary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at it as a funny thing,\u201d Swank says over beers at a Columbus dive bar. \u201cA Chuck Jones or Tex Avery approach, where we rip out entrails and we\u2019re jumping rope with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the identical time, Swank and his bandmates are devoted to the craft of demise metallic. (\u201cWe take our musicianship and what we do and how hard we work very seriously,\u201d he says.) There\u2019s a distinction between being a humorous band and being a joke band, and Sanguisugabogg don\u2019t need to be mistaken for the latter. Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em>, the band\u2019s ass-stomping sophomore album, crops their flag firmly on the suitable facet of that line. It\u2019s simply the perfect factor they\u2019ve achieved to this point \u2014 some extent underlined by right this moment\u2019s new single \u201cFace Ripped Off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe had something to prove,\u201d Swank confirms. \u201cWe wanted to put out an album that stands out in our complete discography. We took it a lot more seriously, and on top of that, because we had more time to put something together, we put a lot more heart into it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanguisugabogg first exploded onto the scene with 2019\u2019s Pornographic Seizures<\/em>, a four-song blitz of primitive demise metallic depravity that was recorded, tracked, and combined in a day. As anybody who trawls the style tags on Bandcamp is aware of, there\u2019s a dozen releases matching that description popping out any given week. But Pornographic Seizures<\/em> managed to rise to the highest of the heap.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that maybe in the underground circuits, it would be talked about,\u201d Swank remembers. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would be put up on any scale of what it actually was. But we did have in the back of our minds, this could be a cool thing that people talk about, and maybe when we play shows it\u2019ll be cool as well. We played a garage show before the EP came out, and the moment it was released, we\u2019re on NPR. Some musicians I looked up to as a kid are talking about it. I was like, \u2018Okay, this is way bigger than I ever imagined it was gonna be.\u2019 We were very grateful and humbled from the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Seizures<\/em> broke on-line, Sanguisugabogg hit the highway. On their first tour, an worker from metallic heavyweights Century Media reached out to say he was passing the EP alongside to the label\u2019s A&R rep. It didn\u2019t go nicely, a minimum of not at first.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir A&R came back, and didn\u2019t really talk shit, but had some comments about it, and was kind of making fun of it and wasn\u2019t interested at first,\u201d Swank says. \u201cSo out of a kind of ignorant, screw-you type thing, when we put out the vinyl of the EP, we slapped a sticker on it talking shit about Century Media. We put in quotations what they said in their email, and we said, \u2018From The Posers That Brought You Deez Nuts.\u2019 We were selling it, and people were cracking up about it, and before you know it, their A&R found out about that and said, \u2018You know what, I was wrong about you guys.’\u201d<\/p>\n Before the ink had even dried on their file contract, storm clouds began to collect over the band. First, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the dwell music trade, scuttling deliberate excursions with the Black Dahlia Murder, Cattle Decapitation, and Knocked Loose. Soon thereafter, a distance started to develop between founding guitarist Cameron Boggs and the remainder of the band. Boggs, who makes use of they\/them pronouns, performed on the band\u2019s Century Media debut, Tortured Whole<\/em>, however that was successfully their remaining contribution to Sanguisugabogg.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t practice with us for about seven months,\u201d Swank says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until we were about to confirm our first tour back after COVID that they texted us and said that they were officially stepping down. When we were doing the rollout, they ended up getting the album name tattooed on their forehead, but then from there, we didn\u2019t see them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Boggs\u2019 exit difficult issues within the quick run, however it additionally cleared the best way for a brand new and improved Sanguisugabogg. Ced Davis, who had not too long ago joined the band to play bass, slid over to guitar. Mutilatred\u2019s Drew Arnold stepped in on bass. The lineup was rounded out by drummer Cody Davidson, a cofounder of the band and the songwriter behind most of Tortured Whole<\/em>. The touring that ensued cemented the band\u2019s fame as highway canines. (Swank estimates that Sanguisugabogg performed 125 dwell reveals in 2022.) All that gigging additionally helped them determine what sort of band they wished to be, post-Boggs. That began with a daring new configuration.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were just like, let\u2019s do something stupid,\u201d Swank laughs. \u201cOne of my favorite bands of all time is Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and they never had a bass player. They did this thing where they would run the guitar through a bass cab. Pig Destroyer did it, too. So we were like, \u2018Let\u2019s do it with two guitar players, and just have this really muddy tone that the kind of death metal bands that we listen to are known for.\u2019 And we decided to try it out on the Nile and Incantation tour [in early 2022], and from there we were like, let\u2019s just stick with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The stomach-churning bass tone the band captured on Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em> bears out the success of that experiment. \u201cWe wanted to emulate the live sound as much as we can,\u201d Swank says. \u201cIt\u2019s still got the subs, it\u2019s still got the low-end underneath it, so it still has the sound of a bass. But it\u2019s a guitar. And there\u2019s bass solos on it too, which is sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n The sonic illness of Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em> goes far past its bass sound. Swank boasts that it\u2019s the band\u2019s most collaborative effort to this point, with each member getting riffs on the file. Unlike its extra clearly studio-bound precursors, Ecstasy<\/em> sounds just like the work of an amazing dwell band \u2014 which Sanguisugabogg now most actually are. They spent the previous yr and a half sharing payments with demise metallic royalty, hardcore legends, and fellow hungry younger upstarts. That all appears to have rubbed off on Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em>. It\u2019s single-minded in its bludgeoning impact, however it achieves it in quite a lot of methods \u2014 with groove, with pace, even with melody.<\/p>\n Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em> can also be main step up within the lyrics division, a growth Swank credit to lastly having enough time to write down them. Starting with an concept that was impressed by the serial-killer drama Dexter<\/em>, Swank depicts demise metallic\u2019s pet obsession with homicide as a sort of drug: \u201cSomething you can get hooked on. Something that\u2019s euphoric and puts you at ease, something you need and crave, something that can hurt you in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe way I look at it is, I wish Tipper Gore was after me in the \u201980s, because I would have been right there with Frank Zappa and Dee Snider about how not-serious these themes are,\u201d Swank says of his lyrics. Indeed, songs like \u201cBlack Market Vasectomy\u201d and \u201cNecrosexual Deviant\u201d are provocative however essentially flippant, however that characterization nonetheless sells Swank somewhat bit quick. Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em> additionally discovered him writing essentially the most private music he\u2019s ever penned.<\/p>\n \u201cI included a song about my grandmother, and how when I got the news that she was passing away and I didn\u2019t have much time with her, I went through all different kinds of things in my mind,\u201d Swank says. \u201cThese are the last moments I have with her. Am I gonna let it tear me down? Or am I gonna live for her? I made a song called \u2018Mortal Admonishment\u2019 that was about going through that. It\u2019s like, \u2018This hurts me, but at the same time, I\u2019ve gotta choose something.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMortal Admonishment\u201d is an album spotlight, however it\u2019s additionally an outlier. This continues to be Sanguisugabogg we\u2019re speaking about, and their Looney Tunes<\/em>-by-way-of-Terrifier<\/em> aesthetic continues to be the dominant one. If Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em> wins over new followers \u2013 and it ought to \u2013 it is going to be as a result of the band got here collectively to tighten the screws on their formulation, not as a result of they ripped it up and began over.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a band where there\u2019s so much polarity,\u201d Swank acknowledges. \u201cWe\u2019re a band with a funny logo and funny name, so it\u2019s like, people don\u2019t know what to think about us sometimes. But I feel like if you listen to [Homicidal Ecstasy<\/em>] in comparison to everything else, you can tell that we put a lot more love into it. There\u2019s a lot more \u2018us\u2019 in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n