Pottiffer's Penny
"Cripple March"
(Independent) 

This CD has a somewhat appropriate title-another word for "crippled" is "lame", and lame this band is! They are a trio who play grunge-style rock, that sounds like any number of bands who could have come along in the 90's, when this style was "hot." They have all the elements of grunge; influence from Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, fuzztone, downtuned guitars, raw, stripped-down production, and despair-laden singing from vocalist Brett Leitner. The only thing lacking is talent-these guys can barely play at all! The music they turn out is slow, boring, plodding, and monotonous. All the songs sounded the same, each a copy of the other, and they were all two-chord, limp-wristed, half-assed tunes, and they all creep along at a snail's pace. One word to describe their music-YAWN! These guys are not the best musicians or songwriters, not by a long shot! The only two (Very!) vaguely interesting things on this album are the opening and closing tracks, simply titled "Enter" and "Exit", respectively. The only thing that made this tunes stand out, really, is that they sound different from anything else on the album. "Enter" sounds like an orchestra tuning up, and "Exit" is a spacey, spooky little number. Neither is a masterpiece by any means but they are different from all the other songs on this disc, as I said, that is why they stuck out for me. The rest of the album is nothing but third-rate, two-chord, sleep-inducing grunge rock, that's been done a thousand times before, by bands that are a thousand times better. With song titles like "Big Fat Worm" and "Donkey Dick", you'd think this would have a little more zing, if nothing else!

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