Now largely forgotten outside of fanatical noise rock nerd circles, Tumor Circus were an especially acerbic (if short-lived) outfit from the early 1990s that teamed together Australian scuzz-rock specialist Charles Tolnay ( King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat, Grong Grong), skronk-masters Dale Allan Flattum and Darren K. Mor-X from Steel Pole Bath Tub, and one Eric Boucher on vocals, better known as Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame. This was always one of my favorite Biafra-related projects from this era, dropping a serious scum-bomb with their 1991 eponymous CD. The band was joined by Mike Morasky (Duh, Steel Pole Bathtub, Milk Cult, and later a prominent video game composer) on this disc, contributing additional guitar and tape samples to the din. With the full lineup involved, this project was essentially Steel Pole Bath Tub with Biafra on vocals. But also more. Something heavier, filthier, sludgier. Tumor Circus didn't release much; I'm pretty sure this CD contains everything the band ever recorded and released. It has the self-titled LP, the notorious "Meathook Up My Rectum" single, and the three songs from the Take Me Back Or I'll Drown Our Dog 7". It's the closest thing to a full-length album that Tumor Circus ever released, and it's a beast.

The gang whips up some seriously feral, noise-damaged sludgepunk that puts your skull through the wringer, with a heavier, lumbering weight than Steel Pole Bath Tub's regular stuff. Everything's ugly. Rotten. Irritated. Gross song titles. Flattum's bass guitar slithers in over the discordant dirge of "Hazing for Success (Pork Grind Confidential)", dragging you along as the band busts out an almost ten minute dirge of sickeningly skronky Stooges-esque sludge-rock while Biafra bellows about elite fraternal orders like the Skull & Bones society. Topically and lyrically, this disc oozes with Biafra's trademark sardonic satire, the kind of scathing, profane indictments of power and authority he delivered in the Kennedys, touching on a mix of disturbing subjects that still pack an angry punch. The music is a perfect pairing for these visions of ugliness and weird societal horrors, spiked guitar noise and atonal chords smeared over that lumbering bass guitar and Mor-X's stomp-a-thon drumming. That opener wanders out into the hinterlands of freeform noise, but songs like "Human Cyst" and the cow-punky "The Man With The Corkscrew Eyes" are more concise, ripping and rapid-fire heavy riffs and bursts of hardcore-level aggression radiating from the gruesome noisiness and angularity. When they start to spin out their wonky guitar solos, it's a mess of psych-skree and brain-damaged shredding; when that shit is exploding over the faster Tumor Circus tunes, it's awesome.

"Take Me Back Or I'll Drown Our Dog (Headlines)” is a party. It's angular, spastic, as close to "anthemic" as this band gets, with backing vocals from a cast of characters that includes Dave Brockie from GWAR, Something Weird Video founder Jim Vraney, and some guy named "Mark Giant Skinhead". I love it. The notorious anti-censorship screed "Meathook Up My Rectum" grinds away at a heavy, fuzz-crusted groove, Biafra going batshit, the Circus battering away with bludgeoning riffs, blow-outs of demented guitar and fucked-up effects. Pretty nuts and borderline psychedelic. It's the last song where things turn downright monstrous, though. "Turn Off the Respirator" is an agonizing sixteen minute crawl that just pounds you into the asphalt, it's almost like hearing Jello Biafra fronting a doom metal band. Almost. And then you have Hyde Street Studios engineer Tom Doty playing piano in here. Those keys swirling among the cloudy guitar skree, blobs of trippy effects, Skullflower-esque string-scrape and drugged-out noise everywhere, Tolnay and Mor-X holding it all down with a miserable ultra-heavy slow-motion riff. Dark, diseased, dissonant sludge moving like an inebriated slug across the final stretch, a spooky, bleary cacophony of absolutely wrecked heaviness.

Man, if you're into the more aggressive, noise-damaged, metallic noise rock stuff from the early 1990s, you'll definitely want to hear this stuff. It's noisy and fucked-up, with moments of heaviness on par with Melvins. But Tumor Circus tend to stick to a higher gear, most of the songs rocking hard and fast, smearing sleazy swamp-rock over slabs of sandpaper-abrasive pigfuck chaos and gut-dumping bass riff heaviness. It sounds crazed, pissed, obnoxious; these Tumor Circus releases are overdue for rediscovery. Especially for anyone that dug those Melvins collaborations with Biafra years back. If you did, definitely check this out. It's got a similar level of Biafra-fied sleaze-crush. The whole collection is a real banger, a sorta-quasi-forgotten jewel in the deep Alternative Tentacles catalog. I'm really digging this.