On its first two albums, 1994's My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be and 1995's Courtesy And Good Will Toward Men, Athens, Georgia's Harvey Milk cultivated a strain of dirge-metal that was so outrageously glacial and depressed, it made Swans and Melvins sound twee in comparison. Bizarrely, the band followed these albums with an unironic (and awesome) set of KISS- and Led Zeppelin-inspired boogie rock—1998's The Pleaser—before going on hiatus, but with 2006's Special Wishes, Harvey Milk returned with its boogie and brawn in balance. Life... The Best Game In Town continues this idea, with the band (now featuring Thrones' Joe Preston on bass) alternately crushing skulls, moving asses, and in tracks like the Zeppelin-on-Quaaludes standout "Decades," doing both at once. Even subjectively speaking, Life... isn't easy listening (the anvil-heavy ballad "Roses" alone could drive the clinically depressed to suicide), but the improved contrast between upbeat and harrowing makes Harvey Milk's extremes that much easier to appreciate. - Aaron Burgess / The Onion AV Club
The "experimental metal band" with the tools and the audacity to outstrip, I think, most others, the Milk covered Leonard Cohen on their second record, devoted an entire performance to the catalogue of Hank Williams, and released a record that sounded aggressively like modern radio rock in 1997. Their records have offered noise and acoustics, whiplash and lullabies. - Pitchforkmedia.com
Death Goes to the Winner has it all; it starts with a delicate Christmas-themed ballad and then explodes into a mesmerising rock out before boiling down into a soupy, sludgy chug with The Velvet Underground and The Beatles being assimilated and mutated. - Brainwashed.com
This album is a monster, a crushing rock album that delivers on every level needed to create really heavy and interesting music. - NoneLouder.com
Harvey Milk rolled through our city of New York (and some other East Coast cities) this month, and reminded us how they kick so much ass and will go down in history as one of the more amazing cult metal bands of our time. At the band's Knitting Factory and Europa shows, Harvey Milk ripped through their arsenal of classic albums, causing their crowd to bang heads in unison w/ their lava-flow-paced heavy-metal assault. Now, as a special favor to their friends in the Hydra Head offices, Harvey Milk has announced they'll be headed to the West Coast to rock folks from LA to Seattle, and everywhere in between, upon returning from their European tour w/ Oxbow. See full tourdates below.
More about Harvey Milk:
After making their auspicious but notoriously underexposed debut with 1994’s My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be, Athens (GA) dirge lords Harvey Milk recorded two more full-lengths (1995’s Courtesy And Good Will Towards Men and 1997’s The Pleaser) before going tits up in 1998 in a fit of nuptials and child-rearing.
Reintroduced to the underground at large through reissues, live DVDs and whatnot, The Milk reformed to unleash Special Wishes upon the feverishly lactating public, which has been lactating feverishly ever since. Which is to say that the Milk — as they themselves like to say—have “not” been “canceled due to lack of interest yet.”
Fast forward to the here and, like, now, and Harvey Milk are celebrating their own renaissance by lauding the virtues of The Best Game In Town. Spearheaded by the alternately burly and angelic vocal stylings of Milk mastermind Creston Spiers, The Best Game In Town. is both tumultuous and grueling, resonating with the glorious slow-motion radiance of Total Dirge Power. In layman’s terms: Yet another classic. Oh, and did we mention that they’ve since been joined by Thrones legend Joe Preston? Well, they totally have.
Click to stream all of "Life..." here!
The Best Game In Town Tracklist
Death Goes to the Winner
Decades
After All I’ve Done For You, This Is How You Repay Me?
Skull Sock and Rope Shoes
We Destroy The Family
Motown
A Maelstrom of Bad Decisions
Roses
Barnburner
Goodbye Blues
Harvey Milk Live!
Europe w/ Oxbow
Jul 7 2008 Club Schocken Stuttgart
Jul 8 2008 Festaal Kreuzberg Berlin
Jul 9 2008 Hafenklang Hamburg
Jul 10 2008 Worm Rotterdam
Jul 11 2008 Recyclart Brussels
Jul 12 2008 Supersonic Festival Birmingham
Jul 13 2008 Glasgow Stereo / ABC 2
Jul 14 2008 The Ruby Lounge Manchester
Jul 15 2008 Underworld London
Jul 16 2008 La Maroquinerie Paris
Jul 17 2008 FZW Dortmund
Jul 18 2008 Dour Festival Dour
US West Coast Dates
Jul 22 2008 Rubber Gloves Denton, TX
Jul 23 2008 Red 7 Austin, TX
Jul 25 2008 Solar Culture Tucson, AZ
Jul 26 2008 Relax Bar Hollywood, CA
Jul 27 2008 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA
Jul 31 2008 The Funhouse Seattle, WA
Aug 2 2008 Berbati's Portland, OR
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