Review: The Humms: Pelzer Fuck Club
The Humms: Pelzer Fuck Club
In 2020, just prior to the release of the album Vampire Hours, the intangible binary mist known as the algorithm, recommended that I check out its creator, The Humms. I immediately focused on the top right corner of their bandcamp page to see where the band hailed from. An instinctive habit, subconscious even, perhaps done in an effort to give me a better reference point for what I was about to listen to. It read Athens, Georgia and led me to believe that there may have been more than just an algorithm at work here. For me, Athens, Georgia is not merely some small southern college town, 73 miles east of Atlanta. It is hallowed ground of the highest order.
One of the pivotal moments in my life was the day my neighbour slipped the 15-year-old me a mix-tape of early R.E.M. songs. I was mesmerised. Athens immediately became a mythical place for me and a catalyst that opened me up to concepts like counterculture, gender fluidity and independent art. It was the starting point for my personal discovery of rock ‘n’ roll by way of its bohemian art students and their DIY scene that emerged in the late 70’s and early 80’s - a scene that birthed not only R.E.M. but also The B-52’s, Pylon, Love Tractor - which would help draw the blueprint for the American Underground. The Humms’ Zeke Sayer continues in the tradition of those seminal Athens bands, making music that dials in the weird and the fiercely creative in equal measure.
The band’s 2010 album Lemonland, fit nicely within that era’s garage rock centric leanings, adorned with folk trimmings, and flexed the musical capabilities of Sayer as a songwriter. His abilities are a testament perhaps to his unique upbringing, surrounded by music at Clem’s Shoal Creek Music Park. It would be another ten years before The Humms’ would return with Vampire Hours and it would be a reset of sorts. The sounds from Lemonland were replaced with more ambitious arrangements, heavy in mood and atmosphere, steeped in the experiences that unfolded for Zeke over the course of the decade. Loss, love and death crystallised and captured within the glow of those lonely hours between sundown and sunrise. Two years on, comes Pelzer Fuck Club which manages to balance the light and the darkness and all shades of grey in between.
The songs pull together like vignettes, offering little windows revealing the characters that inhabit the spaces within these songs. This is definitely not a mere collection of songs, but a singular minded album. The songs sit together and sway back and forth sonically, dipping into darkness, then are pulled back into the light. It is a very strong demonstration of different styles that Sayer manages to blend together, culminating in a cycle you want to listen to in its entirety.
The adrenalized “Burn One Off” kicks open the door to Pelzer Fuck Club with an unhinged caveman stomp and underworld surf guitar, dissected down the middle with a laser guided guitar solo. Follow up track “Golden Bears”, hits a completely different nerve and foreshadows the weird and whimsical turns on the album. It’s on these percussive excursions that Sayer most distances himself from the sounds of Lemonland, and continues the sonic traditions of Vampire Hours. Many of these songs - “Golden Bears”, “Hot Clorox”, “Singing Pines” “Magic Mile” - tap into the kind of solitary cabaret music Tom Waits or How Gelb would take notice of. These are the moments that pull the shade, and provide the counterpoint to Pelzer Fuck Club’s poppier melodies. Sayer’s delivery on such tracks sells the imagery, his vocals emerging from deep down below, sounding hushed and sinister.
On “Maurice” the titular character is questioned and called out for dealing counterfeit pills straight from his pockets, which results in people feeling ill, an unsettling result for the sick seeking their fix. The song’s acoustic guitar cast a weightless sunny gauze over the song, which paired with a simple infectious keyboard melody binds the weight of the subject matter with infectious melody.
“Funny Man” and “Yard Song” also break free from the darker corners of Pelzer Fuck Club, at least sonically speaking. “Funny Man” struts with certainty, while the narrator asks “Who could possibly understand me?”, as you follow the bouncing bass line. “Yard Song” is a skiffle song, a backyard state of address, a self-check and declaration of independence, perhaps the narrator's moment of clarity.
As with Vampire Hours, Pelzer Fuck Club sounds as though the songs were pulled from the night. “Moon Tune'' and its nocturnal jangle hypnotises with circular guitars as it snakes its way through the inky black of night with images of black lights, salty dogs, and police busting tramps sitting under the moonlight.
“Sometimes I Feel (Nothing At All)” is salve for that part of your heart that breaks under the weight of life. The song’s tragic beauty lies in its ability to soothe despite the sadness and offers comfort to anyone who has drifted into those darker recesses of the mind.
Over the twelve songs, Pelzer Fuck Club transports the listener into the unique musical mind of Zeke Sayer and his tales of odd characters and the burdens they carry. Like the great bands from Athens, Georgia that came before, The Humms sound uniquely themselves.
Pelzer Fuck Club releases August 30, 2022 on Gypsy Farm Records
Tune in to The Go-Go Radio Magic Show Friday September 2 2022 for our interview with Zeke Sayer.
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