CHRISTBAIT: Dirtypunkmutha CD

Melbourne in the mid-90s was doing something genuinely unhinged, and Christbait were at the centre of it. While the rest of the world caught up to sludge and doom, these guys were already neck-deep in the muck, dragging the Australian underground somewhere uglier and more interesting.

Released in 1996, Dirtypunkmutha is exactly what the title promises, a collision of sludge metal and doom metal with the kind of low-end dread that makes your chest cavity feel wrong. It sits comfortably alongside the American sludge wave of the era but has a distinctly Melbourne grime to it, the kind that only comes from playing to thirty people in a room that smells like spilled beer and bad decisions. If you've been sleeping on the Australian dark and heavy underground, this is required reading.

Format: CD. Original release year: 1996. This pressing: 1996. Genre: Sludge Metal, Doom Metal. Origin: Melbourne, Australia.

Fans of: Eyehategod, Cavity, Melvins