Squid Pisser played 529 on August 31st, midway through their “Tumors Across America” tour. The stage was decorated as a floral altar. Catching glimmers of unsightly avant-garde characters in the dark smoke-filled room paired with jarring, loud, heavy, and chaotic music was not only shocking but oddly hauntingly beautiful.
The project belongs to Tommy Meehan — who also performs in GWAR as Grodius Maximus, which might explain the masked presence onstage — alongside guitarists Michael Armendariz and Raz Azraai and drummer Seth Carolina of Starcrawler. The LA band calls their sound “avant-grind,” fusing blown-out electronics and noise-drenched guitars into something compared to Melt-Banana and The Locust. Their new EP, Throat Slave (out August 28th via Skin Graft/Sweatband), is about “defending your identity from parasites — whether people, institutions, bad habits, or internal doubt,” built on imagery of decay and disease. Throat Slave is not streaming on all platforms.
