After Womb Eater Wife Beater and Somewhere Over The Painbow, 30.000 Monkeys, hailing from Beringen, Limburg, Belgium, and named after a band that did clearly inspire them, Lightning Bolt, return with another piece of total yet enthusiastic absurdism, called I Ate Myself To Grow Twice As Big. It gets released by our own Consouling Sounds on both compact disc and vinyl (12” long player) and it lasts for just over forty minutes. The material was recorded at the Much Luv studio with Tim De Gieter doing the engineering duties (+ mix), and the result was mastered by no one else but Brad Boatright at his famous Audiosiege (think: Soul Grip, Cleric, Wiegedood, Thaw, Toxic Holocaust and many more). The line-up on this recording is: Ruben Savenkoul (vocals, guitars and keyboards), Igor Vuch (bass and synths), Michiel De Naegel (guitars) and newly recruited drummer Dries Schreurs.
With this album, 30.000 Monkeys continue their quest for both heaviness and experiment at the one hand, and irony at the other. Once again they succeed! What these guys perform is a mostly dissonant, experimental and open-minded mixture of Grind-Ambient (??? – listen to some parts in the mighty track Juice, like the opening sequences, and you’ll understand…), Indie Rock, Post-Metal, Sludge, Drone, Doom, Ambient (cf. the outroduction of the album!) and Noisegroovepsychogrindprogrock. In general, everything is so intensive and overwhelming, leaving no room to calm down, to absorb what you hear. You do not experience this stuff: it experiences and absorbs the listener! On purpose, I’m sure, the band causes confusion and even irritation, but within a masochistic state-of-mind, the open-minded listener might adore these sonic tortures for sure. Especially when noticing that each single creation on this album has its own identity (it’s not just a chaotic and incoherent collage of excerpts), many fans that know the visionary roster of Consouling Sounds might be attracted.
I Ate Myself To Grow Twice As Big is like a psychedelic experience, but of the heaviest, most powerful and overwhelming kind. It needs endurance, boldness and open-mindedness to fully survive this album, time after time. But also ‘time after time’, new elements will appear, will come to the surface, accompanying your ear drums to massive, torturous dimensions of very early Unearthly Trance or Coltsblood, then again the psychedelic undertones of The Melvins or Sleep, the ugly, merciless attitude à la Sourvein and Walk Through Fire, or the hypnotic spheres where acts like Opium Warlords, Melt Banana or Lightning Bolt dwell.
Bon appétit indeed!