The Tyranny of Tradition

I woke up about two months ago with a wolverine on my porch.  I think it was a wolverine.  I can’t really tell.  It is a horrifying beast that smells like dead otters. When I found it, it looked cute enough.  Whoever left it for me put it in a basket with a blanket around it like it was a baby.  However, the minute I took it into my home it went berserk destroying my entire Manowar vinyl collection and the Mille Petrozza velvet painting I had commissioned during a particularly serious Kreator listening binge.  I call the thing The Freon Neonate.

The first issue that needed to be addressed was finding it food.  I tried microwave pizzas, guacamole dip, Cheetos, Lysol, pepper spray….but it wanted no part of those things.  I picked up some groundhogs from the pet store and it seemed to like those much better.  They are expensive.  One groundhog is about fifteen bucks.  Way too much to spend to feed this thing regularly.

My problem was solved about two weeks ago when I took the thing for a walk to the park up the street from me.  The Freon Neonate spotted a hipster Jehovah’s Witness knocking on a door in our neighborhood and went wild.  He snapped the leash I was walking him with and, in what seemed a matter of seconds, retracted its jaws consumed a hipster five times his size.  It was incredible.  Nothing was left.  Bones, horned-rimmed glasses, Converse sneakers, beard, Elvis Costello tee-shirt, Watchtower magazines….gone.

I wasn’t sure if it liked hipsters or Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I fed both to The Freon Neonate.  While it barely touched the Witness, gnawing briefly on her arms before losing interest, it sucked down the hipster like it hadn’t eaten in months.  It even polished off her Hello Kitty vintage purse in two bites.  Problem solved.  All I needed to do to keep it healthy was go down to Little Five Points every few days, bag a fresh hipster and we were set.

After a while, I found The Freon Neonate was getting bored.  It would lie on its side in its cage for hours making terrible howling noises and horrifying the neighbors.  I decided that I would try to teach it English.  Its language abilities aren’t bad for a wolverine.  It had learned enough to communicate on a basic level by the beginning of August, but we had both got sick of the didactic nature of the lessons pretty quickly.  We needed a new challenge.

That’s when I decided to give it a chance to do album reviews for Tyranny of Tradition.  I called up Nuclear Blast’s PR department to see if I could get one promotional copy of the new Carcass album for The Freon Neonate to review.  They immediately sent me 127 copies of the CD along with a wolverine sized “Surgical Steel” tee shirt.  I threw the CD in immediately.  Here is how the creature responded to each of the songs.

1985-The Freon Neonate was staring off into space when the album came on, but immediately began to pace back and forth nervously.  Halfway through the track it started howling in a perverted attempt to mock Bill Steer’s guitar tone.

Thrasher’s Abattoir-The quick beginning to the song startled the animal.   It began thrashing its body against the bars wailing louder and louder.

Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System-The wailing continued reaching its crescendo halfway through this tune.  Then, the animal began to say “Gooooooood.  Goooooood.  BLERGHYPHERB!!!!  GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!”

A Congealed Clot of Blood-It didn’t seem to like this one as much.  For the first minute, it bobbed its head, but it lost interest and began to lick its own feet.

The Master Butcher’s Apron-Something in this song made the wolverine unhappy.  “EHHHHHHHH…..NO SONG GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD…..GLERPHICKLUHR!!!!!!”  With 2:30 left, it gnawed through the bars and began a rampage through the house, breaking furniture and dishes.

Noncompliance to ASTM F899-12 Standard-I spent most of this song chasing the animal around and was unable to take notes.  Great tune, but beyond smashing a vase that belonged to my Aunt Penelope, I can’t tell you much about the animal’s reaction.

The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills-Satiated in its desire to destroy things and chewing on the fingers of some kid with an MGMT that I found down at the local mission, the animal was finally able to relax and enjoy the magnificence of this utterly amazing song.  We both agreed on this as the best song on the album.

Unfit For Human Consumption, 316 L Grade Surgical Steel, Captive Bolt Piston-I was, again, unable to record any response as the animal had nodded off while enjoying the sedating effect of eating hipster fingers.  It seemed happy enough, but I don’t want to speculate as to the animal’s views on the songs based on its snoring.

Mount of Execution-It came out of its comatose state during the acoustic guitar intro and began to howl:

“Souuuuuund….like…..GLERGHPH……GLRRGPHHHHHHHHHHRG……………laaaaaater….Maaagaaaaaaadeth!”

Without knowing the animal’s opinion on the last few Megadeth albums, I was unable to figure out whether this was an endorsement or a criticism.