Album Details

• Artist: Dwarr
• Album: Animals
• Label: Brand X Recordings
• Year of Release: 1986
• Original Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2010-12-11

Originally  released in 1986, "Animals" finds one Duane Warr, right in the middle of hair-band power ballad hell, dipping his toes into what was called 70s boogie and soon to be slowed down and called doom. But he didn't know that. Apparently, all he wanted to do was turn up his amps, try and control some feedback, and shred some gorilla riffs, with buddy Ron Sparks along for some percussion here and there. This is heavy, meaty, and dripping with distorted sonic gravy.

In two minutes, "Evil Lures" is a blueprint for stoner metal. While Dwarr stays solid on the straight on bazooka tunes like "Heavy Vibrations" and the title track, extended prog efforts like "Chocolate Mescaline" and "That Deadly Night," the latter of which features a spoken section worthy, intended or not, of Spinal Tap.

Warr's guitar, is relentlessly, joyfully, distorted and crunchy throughout. Had he been a teenager, this recorded would have been recorded with a hardon. This is all about realizing just what a racket one can make, and making a fucking racket like there's no tomorrow!

Even if you don't like "Animals," you can't call it derivative. Dwarr prefigured doom while obviously trying to channel Sabbath, or create the kind of feral grunt that Nugent or Uli John Roth claimed to deliver but never did.

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