The Meatmen: Evil In A League With Satan EP

The band's new CD may be titled Evil In A League With Satan, but The Meatmen's Tesco Vee is hardly what you'd call evil. Sure, he has a mean streak, he's punk as hell, and he's a bit egotistical, but that shouldn't be confused with evil. Only two tracks on League With Satan—the ones recorded with Butt Trumpet's Bianca Butthole—have not been released before. The rest are odds and ends, including the band's covers of the title track (originally recorded by Venom) and Boris The Sprinkler's "Drugs And Masturbation," and four other songs about sex, drugs, and how you, the listener, suck. The straightforward hardcore music is not particularly inspired, but Meatmen fans aren't swapping guitar tabs; they're yukking it up over the poop jokes. The enhanced CD-ROM portion is sluggish but relatively amusing. You get to see live Meatmen captured on video, view grainy stills of Tesco Vee's impressive toy collection, and play a game in which Tesco Vee and Jesus fight. It's droll, but the action is too sluggish. If you want Jesus to slap Tesco Vee (or, if you want to go to hell, have Tesco Vee punch Jesus), it takes about five to ten seconds after you press the button for the action to occur. It's an amusing disc, but it's not exactly enduring.