Laughing Hyenas

Laughing Hyenas is the name d´un group of founded Rock étasunien in 1985 with Ann Arbor (in the Michigan) by John Brannon, ex-vocalist of Negative Approach, Larissa Strickland, Kevin Strickland with the low Guitare and James Kimball with the battery. The group, playing a type of blues-punk visceral with the powerful and intense sound, was dissolves in 1995.

History

Initial period 1985-1990 (with Kevin Strickland and James Kimball)

Little time after the dissolution of the legendary group hardcore Negative Approach , John Brannon met Larissa Strickland, ex-guitarist of L-Seven (no bond with the group L7 of Los Angeles), which at the time of their meeting had played of the guitar only for 6 months. Immediately the couple recruits a bass player and a beater and foam the local scene, recording a demonstration on cassette the year following the foundation of the group, cassette entitled Stain .

The demonstration quickly made draw the attention of the independent recording companies, and it is on Touch & Go of Chicago that the quartet published its first true album, Merry Go Round , in 1987. This disc, produced by Butch Vig, offers to the musical world an occasion to revisit the tradition rock'n'roll of the Midwest with, in particular, an articulated rhythm section pointing out the free jazz.

Brannon is an insane preacher, howling what he saw by throwing an eye behind the doors of l´ Enfer. Extremely of this publication and a successful round but testing, the quartet takes again the way of the studio and is confined, in 1989 of its most achieved work, You Can' T Pray has Lie where the " tornaballades" daze the listener in a tribal frenzy worthy of Birthday Party and singing exercises horripilantes sometimes pointing out the tradition of Shouters of Deep South. The rage and the anger of Brannon are supported with brilliance by the guitar sharp-edged and throbbing of Strickland, a blues of most visceral and extreme since the end of the year 1960. After a round with Sonic Youth, the group succeeds in laying another opus Life Of Crime . The sound of this album is refined more and the paradigms are closer to Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen but the rage and the impact are reduced by it, once again not ensured by a rhythm section playing skilfully with the tailstocks violent one and originals of the guitarist.

Period intermediary 1991-1992

In 1991, James Kimball and Kevin Strickland leave the group to found the trio Mule with P.W. Length. John and Larissa engage Kevin Reis and Todd A. Swalla, ex-beater of Necros, one of the first groups of hardcore étatsunien of the area of Strait. The group succeeds in gathering four parts for a EP, Crawl which appears in 1992. The sound of the group and the invoice of the compositions, while remaining connected on the paramount rage and of the fronts flamers, become a little more normal. Kevin Reis cannot support the rate/rhythm of round and the group is obliged to take a pause to replace it.

Period finale 1993-1995

Ron Sakowski, also ex-Necros like Swalla, replaced Reis with low, and after many and testing turned within the group for integrating the novel member well into the sound of the group. The result of this integration is the album Hard Times , left at the beginning 1995 and supposed to reflect the painful existence of the group. This album resembles more the Rolling Stones than in Stooges of the beginning of the year 1970, with a support much more pronounced on the blues than the preceding albums. The howls are still there, on Just Can' T Win or Hard Time Blues but the majority of the seven parts draw more on the boogy of John Lee Hooker than on free violence d´ Iggy Pop or of the MC 5. The technical maturation of the group remains masterly but the group separates the same year, victim of the abuses drug of the Strickland/Brannon couple.

Brannon will form later four years Easy Action with Sakowski.

Discography

Stain (independent) 1986
Like Down to the Merry Go Round (EP, Touch and Go) 1987, republished in 1995
You Can' T Pray has Lie (Touch and Go) off 1989
Life Crime (Touch and Go) 1990
Crawl (EP, Touch and Go) 1992
Hard Times (Touch and Go) 1995

See too

External bond

Site of the group

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