FUZZ EVIL ~ SMEAR MERCHANTS ....review

"A chug heavy four piece" is how Sierra Vista, Arizona's Fuzz Evil refer to themselves and there is no denying that there is a certain level of "chug" to be found in their fuzz drenched musical attack but there is also so much more. Admittedly the bands early releases, "Fuzz Evil" (2016) and "High On You" (2018), did carry a "let's have a party" old school stoner/desert rock vibe but then along came 2023's "New Blood" and all of a sudden we were hearing elements of off-centred quirkiness filtering into their sound along with an element of dark edginess, it was clear to all hearing the album that these guys were evolving as both songwriters and musicians. Evolution is a force that once it starts is impossible to stop and so those experiments with quirkiness and edginess, that saw "New Blood" grabbing a respectable #30 on the September edition of 2023's Doom Charts, can also be found making their presence felt on Fuzz Evil's latest release "Smear Merchants" (Desert Records) along with some textures and colours that border on the edges of both ambient and blackened.

Opening track "Fraile Mourning of Eternity" is gentle homely and quaint so make the most of it because apart from the ambient and atmospheric "Whispers from the Abyss", that closes the album, its foot to the floor raucous heaviness all the way. The heaviness begins with second track "Wanderers Wake". the guitars of Wayne Rudell and Preston Jennings (baritone) combining with Joseph Rudell's exquisite booming bass and  Kenneth "Cajun" Adam's busy and industrious drumming to create a groove dirtier and darker than anything that has graced the bands output up until now.. Vocals here are for the most part clean and melodic with W Rudell handling the majority of the lead work in his customary gritty croon with his bass playing brother Joseph helping out on backing vocals and harmonies, as we have said earlier there is blackened edginess to be found within the bands sound on this album day and much of that edginess is down to drummer Adams pitching in with vocals of a harsher, growlier nature. The heavy darker feel the band bring to that second number is more or less the vibe running through the majority of the album, songs like "Progression of the Black Sun", "How To Vibe Alone" and "Under The Starlit Grave" find the band hitting grooves that sound like they should belong in the canon of doom but if this is doom then its a doom stitched together with so many other elements that it almost becomes something else entirely, and let us just say that it is a something you'll really not want to miss out on. Even when the band do slip back to their old desert punk roots, like on "Sermons of the Defiant", and to some extent, title track "Smear Merchants", its as if they have discovered a darker more twisted version of their old selves. For us at Desert Psychlist though it is the song sitting at #3 on the albums track listing that really brings to the fore Fuzz Evil's evolution as a band, "Doomsayers Lament" may be an instrumental and may only be just over two minutes long but this is a song that takes the rule book and tears it to shreds, its like musical form and experimentation decided to sit down and write a tune together, which gets Desert Psychlist wondering if it was this schizophrenic jam that was the catalyst for the bands decision to approach their music from a whole new angle this time out.

"Smear Merchants" is Fuzz Evil at not only their fuzziest but also their most evil, the songs contained beneath the albums impressive artwork (courtesy of Joseph Rudell) are darker, more complex and better thought out than anything the band have attempted to date. Of course the desert/punk rock elements of the bands sound, which has served them so well up to this point, still surface from time to time but here they are blended with darker, heavier essences drawn from some of metals furthest extremities. It is these essences along with the bands willingness to push boundaries and experiment that make "Smear Merchants" one of the essential listening experiences of 2025.

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© 2025 Frazer Jones