Albuquerque, the city that I’ve lived in for the last four years of my life, is a place I owe much to. The natural beauty and serenity of the mountainous landscape, the wonderful food here (I really couldn’t live without breakfast burritos) and the wonderful people I’ve met in my time here. It’s honestly a shame that the reason people know our city is because of Breaking Bad — sure, it’s a cool show, but it doesn’t exactly paint an enticing picture of Albuquerque. Chief among the reasons Breaking Bad doesn’t represent Albuquerque well, and most importantly to me, is how it ignores our fantastic local scene.
I haven’t been part of the Albuquerque scene for too long and I’m certainly not the most active participant in it, but I gotta say, the local bands here are fantastic. From the stupidly heavy and technical acts, like Vale Of Miscreation, to our deathcore and metalcore bands (Eat A Helicopter and Louder Than Sirens come to mind), to our doom rock like Skulldron, we’ve got a lot of fantastic bands here. And one of the bands chief among these is a local powerviolence group, Hollow Tongue.
The first thing you’ll probably notice about this band is how disgustingly aggressive and heavy they are. Good. That’s what you should be paying attention to. Hollow Tongue are purveyors of absolutely evil music, and their lyrics reflect it just as much as their music. Lines like “melt my mind/boil my flesh/take my soul/time to rest” sit alongside other equally bizarre, poetic, and vaguely-nihilistic lyrics throughout this album.
This is not a happy band. Hollow Tongue is angry, fast, isolated, and a little depressed in the same way as a fair amount of the Weekend Nachos discography. If you’re looking for something to cheer you up, you might want to skip on this for now. But if you need something to accompany your worst days, this is the soundtrack for you.
-SH