Where they from?
Ocean City, MD. So there’s an Ocean City, MD and an Ocean City, NJ, and to be quite honest they are both essentially a sweaty armpit with sand in it. I got kicked off the swing ride on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ because I was drunk and screaming the F Word too loudly. They literally brought in the police to escort me off the ride and the boardwalk. I was too much of a drunk asshole for the place that allowed MTV’s Jersey Shore to happen.
Why the hype?
God, I missed this band. The headline on them has always been that they share members with Full of Hell, but there really is so much more to them than that. I remember seeing this band at the Golden Tea House (RIP) in Philly with Sex Prisoner and Genocide Pact and just being blown away with the bass-heavy rumble that this band brought.
Something about Jarhead Fertilizer just brings back fond memories of the 2015 powerviolence scene for me: VFW shows in Delaware, black denim cut-off jorts and hardcore bands just absolutely abusing HM-2s and thinking they accidentally stumbled upon something brilliant. Whereas Full of Hell eventually morphed into their current avant death metal incarnation, Jarhead always kept it PV: songs about drugs, blast beats, ignorant breakdowns, photoshop collage album covers. This group remains the sonic equivalent of getting kicked off the swing ride on the boardwalk of Ocean City, NJ.
Latest release?
Product of My Environment. And they’re back! After almost six years since their last release (the epic split with Pittsburgh’s Purge), the Jarhead crew returns with a much more plodding and thunderous sound. I wasn’t too sure how to feel about it at first but once I realized that they were essentially going for the Mortician sound minus the two-minute movie samples, it started to click for me. This record is pummeling, like getting punched in the ass for 21 minutes (because you got kicked off the swing ride at the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ).
