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The Daily Tar Heel

Music Review: Heavy Times

Prepare to cover your ears and hide: Chicago-based band Heavy Times has released its sophomore LP, Jacker . It’s certainly not for those with soft ears or weak stomachs, but it will still make suburban garage bands rejoice.

Each track hits the eardrums hard with scratchy garage band-quality guitar riffs and static, grungy vocals that would leave any punk rocker head banging through the streets, and anyone else running home and locking the door.

The LP varies little from start to finish. Clocking in at a measly 22 minutes, Jacker is a rather unforgiving listen for all the sound packed into the twelve mind-melting tracks — mind-melting because each subsequent song is identical to the last.

What separates Heavy Times from the scores of underground garage bands is Jacker’s cell phone-receptor quality, exasperatingly uncreative repetition, and lyrics the group could have pieced together by scanning a list of banned middle school book titles.

Heavy Times doesn’t care if it’s stylish or its sound is stereotypically pretty. But judging by the quality of Jacker , it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try.

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