I’m 32 years old but I’m a juvenile bastard, therefore a band name like Diarrhea Planet means I dissolve into Beavis and Butthead style sniggers whilst conjuring up the image of an actual diarrhoea planet in my head. Eugh – the shitty horror of it all! For a group with a turbo-turd themed moniker, it’s interesting to hear that they’re not just a crap storm of noise and distortion – new EP ‘Aliens in the Outfield’ is heavy of riff and anchors on a screwed up college rock shtick. But there’s melody and a pop sensibility buried beneath the quadruple guitar melee. Yeah, you read that right, Diarrhea Planet count four guitarists amongst their personnel – any notions of widdly-widdly solos and overindulged shredding are kept to a minimum; ‘AITO’ boasts multiple layers of fretwork that overlap with textured poise. Take EP closer, ‘Peg Daddy’, a tautly wound flurry of interlinking guitar lines that than erupt into a coarse maelstrom of pop infused cacophony attributing a mangled anthemic nature to the five-tracker’s finale.

Acceleration is a main factor to the Nashville band’s latest release, things kick off with the charging ‘Heat Wave’ which marauds like a panicked dude trying to find a toilet after eating the world’s fieriest curry – however, the track’s epicentre is the calm eye of the storm before the urge to explode into a blurred mess of riffs and rattling drum licks take over. ‘Platinum Girls’ comes off like a less geeky, more robust Weezer, due to a hefty dose of meaty guitar work and a thumping volley of pneumatic drumming. Again, a slight pop flourish can be heard chiming away whilst the outfit’s guttural lust takes a breather. Sweetly cooed ‘ooo-ooo’s populate ‘Bamboo Curtain’ as does a foot stomping tendency that – maybe not intentionally – provides a humorous strut mid-EP. Leading into EP closer ‘Peg Daddy’ is the fidgeting, full throttle punk tirade of ‘Spooners’. Again, this is when the multi-faceted guitar play comes into great affect, flitting from intricate to massive and devastating.

You won’t get the bum’s rush with ‘Aliens in the Outfield’ but you might shit your pants with glee. Probably best to carry around a spare pair of underpants, you know, just in case.

Word and Thoughts of Adam Williams