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Viking's Choice: CCR Headcleaner's Sludgy Noiseniks 'Steal The Light'

The members of CCR Headcleaner must be some kind of gutter mutants, spawned from the spores of an alternate-universe San Francisco psych scene that's less pop and more bong-ripped hedonism. But if the Geneva Jacuzzi-directed video for the sludgy "Steal the Light" is any indication, then maybe the band's destructively diverse debut, Lace the Earth With Arms Wide Open: 2013, was just formed out of bedroom burnouts.

CCR Headcleaner crafts a perfect swill of psychedelic noise, plastered punk and Fugs-y folk, which makes sense given the band's mixed pedigree. A few members come from The Hospitals, whose 2008 album Hairdryer Peace was like White Light/White Heat run through 12 Big Muff pedals. The rest of CCR features Justin Flowers and Alex Cargile, who spent the first half of the aughts wreaking havoc with the Athens psychedelic rednecks in Long Legged Woman. That band put out one of my favorite albums of 2009; Nobody Knows This Is Nowhere grins ear-to-ear with busted teeth and broken amps, but it would be the band's last. For the curious, there's now an archive of Long Legged Woman's discography on Bandcamp. (Full disclosure: I put out a few releases by LLW on my now-dormant label.) But even if the parts make the whole, there's something altogether stranger, louder and more addled to Lace the Earth. Pass the 40 — let's get weird.

Lace the Earth With Arms Wide Open: 2013 is out now on Pizza Burglar Records. CCR Headcleaner goes on tour with Ty Segall's appropriately named band Fuzz in October.

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