God Help Ye Merry Gentlemen: 10th Grade Cutie's Christmas Album

​Christmas came early for Rocks Off this weekend in the form of Dr. Feelgood, a vaguely holiday-themed album from our favorite little brothers in the increasingly prolific 10th Grade Cutie. You guys can now cancel the order for the black Yamaha V-Star 1100 and the lock of Lemmy's hair, because we are pretty we are covered for this year.

Dr. Feelgood is a roughly seven-minute EP of four tracks of ho-ho's and sleigh bells being put through a meat grinder. It has everything to do with Jesus' birthday and everything not to do with Jesus' birthday. All Christmas hyperbole aside, it's actually a quantum leap for the band in terms of style and sonics.

Lil' Blaine and Rex Ronan have begun to veer off into a strange and different direction really only hinted at in the group's last few released tracks, forgoing the jumpy punk rock for a more screamy lo-fi crunch, bearing slight a resemblance to Houston's Balaclavas. The opening track "Xms" sounds like The Polar Express forgoing the North Pole and instead chugging into Grand Central Station in Hell.

Marc Brubaker

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We caught up with the boys this weekend hot off their trip to Las Vegas. They've made tentative plans to move to the City Of Sin in the next few months, after seemingly falling in love with the town's lax drinking laws and abundance of unused power outlets on the Strip. From what they told us, there is little to no noise scene in town, with most shows and venues being attached to large casinos or hotels. Visions of guerrilla shows are already dancing in their demented little heads.

The release is available for free on the band's Bandcamp profile, as are the bands last three releases, including this past summer's mindwank of a EP, The Band: The Barbecue: The Album (Vol. 1) and their proper debut LP Exploding Plastic Martyr.