Guttermouth

Gusto (2002)

AlucardX

Up until "Gusto", I never once did not enjoy a Guttermouth LP. I thought "Covered With Ants" had its share of good stuff, even though it had a massive speed decrease from the last LPs. "Musical Monkey" and "Teri Yakimoto" are still their undisputed best, but now that Guttermouth has released "Gusto", I can only stare in shock at how under whelming it is. There isn't one song on here that I would go out of my to listen to again, or even one song that is even truly memorable. The cd is absolutely destroyed by filler tracks, and even the best tracks on the disc do little more than make you wonder how far Guttermouth has fallen. The disc isn't very fast, its not very funny, or in that matter very offensive, and it really lacks much of a hook. Those were the things that gave the previous LPs (except maybe CWA) their appeal. Here, everything sounds dumb, uninspired, or just flat out annoying.

The first two tracks, "Camp Fire Girl #62" and "Scholarship In Punk" are somewhat like old Guttermouth, except the speed is cut in half, and they have a very poppy ring to them. Next is the title track, "Gusto", and this, along with a handful of other tracks on the disc sound like he-haw square-dance country music. The only way to tell that its Guttermouth is that it contains foul language. "Vacation" is next, and while it's not terrible, it doesn't sound like Guttermouth very much, and it's pretty forgettable for the most part. "Contagious" is next, and like "That's Life" from CWA, it has a strange vocal distortion effect, again, it's not too bad, but it just doesn't sound like Guttermouth. "Pee In The Shower" is next, and while it does sound like the first two tracks, its chorus is used way too many times, and the verses sound way too poppy. The next track, "Walk Of Shame" actually picks the pace up a bit, but again, its chorus is used way too often and the poppy ring still remains. "My Town" is next, and its absolutely garbage, it might be the worst song Guttermouth has ever done, seriously, what were they thinking? "Contribution" is next, and its actually pretty good, with a nice little guitar solo in the middle. Not great, but it doesn't sink to the depth of most of the other tracks. "Foot long" is next, and we're back to foul mouthed country square-dance, great…Next is "Looking Out For #1", and it tries to sound like a Flogging Molly influenced track, but it falls flat on its face. "Twins" then goes, and it's another garbage track, enough said. "My Girlfriend" is next, and was also on Punk-o-rama 7. This song is kinda funny, but it really has no hook to it. "Lemon Water" is the last track, and if you haven't already turned the cd off, you'll hear a really useless joke song.

I really expected a lot more out of Guttermouth. This is by far their worst cd, and I really don't know what they were thinking during the writing of it. Even the "punkiest" (if that's a word…) songs on here have an undeniably poppy ring to them. The cd just really lacks the hook, speed, humor, or anything that the older Guttermouth LPs had that made them appealing. Here, we only get a dubbed down, poppier version of them that's filled with more filler tracks then you can count on one hand. What happened to the hard, fast Guttermouth songs like "Use Your Mind" and "What's the big deal?" Guttermouth really need to get their act together for their next LP, or else they aren't going to have a fanbase left.