Band:	Memest
Album:	Bastards And Liars
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	October 2014

01. Bastards And Liars
02. Hills And Abysses
03. Black Wings
04. We Love Rats
05. My Friends
06. One God
07. Poor People
08. The Man Who Never Cries

I love bastards & liars, shake my fist at poor people, and raise a drink to the man who never cries.

No, I'm not a heartless sociopath, I'm just a bitter prick referring to some of my favorite tunes from Memest's Bastards & Liars.

The foursome hail from Tortosa, Spain and play that late-70's/early-80's ugly, sweaty, gruff, raw style of metal, a la Iron Maiden (the early years), Motörhead, etc. The kind Darkthrone have been gravitating towards the last couple years. You know, where the uglier the band was on the back of the album, the better you knew the record would be.

So while not at all original, it is enjoyably visceral.

Memest, in my opinion, are at their best when playing aggressive, fast tunes like "We Love Rats" and the tunes alluded to in my opening. Full throttle, full bottle. The energy is catchy and smile-inducing, even if it induces the kind of smiles that have people back away from you cautiously while they press the 9-1-1 (or 999 or 666 or whatever your native land uses) button on their cell phones and hover their trigger finger over "send" just in case.

As I've grown older and doomier, I've come to appreciate the slow ride, take it doomy tracks more and more as well. But those mid-paced songs, the ones that populate half the album in between the fist pumping anthems do very little for me. Never have. So ultimately it's not a Memest problem, as the same malaise settles in when Lemmy or Joey & Johnny Ramone also lock it up at 70bpm.

Chalk the lack of approval up to a deficiency with your reviewer.

So if you're looking for a couple new energetic "smash it up" tracks to add to the playlist for your next Heavy Metal Vomit Party, be sure to check these hombres out.