FUULS - Punk - Missoula, MT

Somehow, FUULS has managed to release what is simultaneously their dirtiest and most polished track yet. To say “Blood Mouth” has bite and bile does it a disservice. As an indigenous person in 2020, frontwoman Ash Nataanii sounds beyond pissed - and with lines like “You always break me to bend my wounded knee” you know FUULS are out for blood.

Their first new music since last year’s “About-Face,” “Blood Mouth” is four-minutes of hardcore bliss, alternating between quiet anticipation and throat-shredding vocals. Ash (guitars, vox), Rob Cave (bass) and Aaron Soria (drums) team up yet again to bring the fight to America’s proto-fascists, and the result sounds like a monolith falling down a mountain face. Listening to the track sounds like riding a semi-truck that's racing full-bore down the highway, gassed up on pure fury and adrenaline. Ash trades out her octave-climbing shouts for screams so apoplectic you can feel the spit fly onto your face. Just when you thought the band reaches a zenith of intensity, they find a way to push back even harder with “more mean and more guillotine.” Phil Griffin of Billings’ Bull Market contributes vocals when the band kicks back in at the second-half and boosts the band even higher with their scorched-earth policy against a capitalistic, sexist, and racist status quo.

Not only is it their darkest and most intense material, but it’s filled to the brim with layers of texture and Easter-eggs of nuance. Clocks, boots, and whistling kettles complement the guitar squeals and punishing drum fills. It begins with guitar-picking that syncs up to a ticking timepiece and ends with an exhausted Ash repeating, “blood, blood, blood” until falling in line to the tempo of marching boots. But don’t take it as defeatism. If there’s anything to this cri de guerre, it’s a warning that the violence restricted to TVs and minority communities is doomed to spill into the daily lives of some of the most privileged. Allusions to utility, greed, and abuse give the song its waste-land of a soundscape. With cryptic lyrics like, "you make me wear every bruise like wedding rings," Ash blurs the line between the domestic and the authoritative, forcing the listener to acknowledge how the personal is political and the political personal.

Thank FUULS we at least have a soundtrack for the accelerating struggle. Their new-found ferocity shows FUULS isn’t resting on its laurels any time soon and has managed to break free from their psych-garage beginnings into heavier, harder territories. Let’s hope they keep thrashing even after shit really hits the fan.

Guitar/Vocals - Ash Nataanii

Bass - Rob Cave

Drums - Aaron Soria

Additional Vocals - Phillip Griffin

Recording and Mixing - Matt Olson, Attack and Release Studios

Mastering - Blake Bickel, Dynamic Sound Services

Lyrics

It cooks at 28 degrees.

Swirling oil round the glass until it boils on a president’s pipe dream.

“Those motherfuckers ate for free!”

And so you eat the dregs and pass their toils on their children like it’s meant for posterity.

“So put your dukes up, bitch! Who learns the lesson if they’re nervous?”

Some corporate punch drunks pining

(sweet on a carrot and a string)

positioned palms up catching that switch like a dime.

You’re always screaming for meat

but never question when it’s cut from your spine.

You got it.

Everything was coming up white and pure.

Rose balks in her shallow demure.

“Gazing at capital lights, the price of power looks like blood on threshing floors.

Because you break me to bend my wounded knee.

You always break me to bend my wounded knee.

You make me wear every bruise like wedding rings.”

You got it.

You bought it.

You taught it.

You sought it

with blood.

Be sure to also check out Phillip Griffin’s interview with FUULS lead singer Ash on his podcast Philthy Talk by clicking here! Also be on the lookout for Ash’s new podcast Melon Dance coming to Waste Radio soon!