Billy & the Bad Peach

Reviews

Billy & the Bad Peach Juiced cassette

These guys do a nice post-punk, slightly noisy thing that at its best reminds me of the CUNTZ or even KILSLUG. They’re from Philly and have been around for a minute. Having the luxury of being able to watch YouTube videos of this band, I can see that they might be able to pull it off live, which is crucial with this kind of druggy dirge. No idea what the unfortunate band name is about, but they coulda been on AmRep way back when in the golden ’90s. Carry on.

Billy & the Bad Peach Demo 2019 cassette

The murky guitar that opens “I Don’t Feel So Good” might make you think you’re in for some regurgitated goth, but that only lasts about fifteen seconds, and these New Jersey mutants offer so much more than that. The opening cut is a squirmy punk done damaged, raw shit just disassembled and tortured to the point where they (almost) sound scary. They do return to those dark undertones (guitar leads in “It’s A Trap,” for example), but the filthy stomp of “Kool” seems to personify the band: “I found out the truth, the truth about you / The truth is you don’t know you.” Only four songs here—all simple and nasty—but fortunately there’s a second tape lurking somewhere back in 2020.