Mexican Ape-Lord have released a video for "Highway 88", a track from the band’s third full-length album, Blunt Instrument, available via Unable Music Group’s new label imprint, 10-31 Records.
Order the album here, and watch the new video below:
From the impact crater of its opening chords to the final subterranean refrain, Blunt Instrument is an exercise in mayhem and madness. The record features the original lineup, with producer Peter Rutcho once again at the controls.
Check out the tracklisting with commentary below:
“Blunt Instrument”: “Evolution, extinction… and sleep paralysis.”
“Kentucky Meat Shower”: “A maniac, inspired by the real Kentucky meat shower of 1876, plans an explosion.”
“Highway 88”: “Alien abduction, the Pig Man, and a demonic hearse.”
“Worm Moon”: “New England settlers bury their winter dead.”
“Down The Mine”: “Desperate men in a hostile landscape.”
“Day Of The Hunt”: “Wild hogs and moonshine in the Smoky Mountains.”
“The Shovel”: “The homicidal caretaker of an abandoned insane asylum is having a bad day.”
“Faraday Cage”: “Havana syndrome meets Theremin's infamous listening device “The Thing.” It ends with a guy guarding a frozen head deep underground because ROCK.”
"Worm Moon" lyric video:
"Kentucky Meat Shower":
"Blunt Instrument":
In 2012 Meliah Rage guitarist/songwriter Anthony Nichols and The Bags vocalist/bassist Jon Hardy teamed up with drummer Steve Fry and lead guitarist Dan Dykes to form Mexican Ape-Lord. The band’s debut album, The Late Heavy Bombardment (Unable Records, 2014) made a slew of top ten lists. BraveWords called it “a balls-out metal album” and True Metal Lives declared “It proudly stands up and gives genre labeling the big middle finger.”
Friends since high school, Nichols and Hardy found success in different branches of the Boston rock scene in the late eighties. After signing to Epic Records in 1988, Meliah Rage went on to release nine albums and built a loyal following over the course of numerous international tours. The Bags won the Boston Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble in 1989, released six albums, and had their song “Cavemen Rejoice” featured on the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero.
Just days after completing work on The Late Heavy Bombardment, Nichols suffered a brutal wrist injury and was told he would never play guitar again. After multiple surgeries and years of rehab he returned to writing music and gradually worked his way back into top form. That material became the basis for Mexican Ape-Lord’s second album, Survival Cannibalism (Unable Records, 2020).
The songs on Survival Cannibalism were inspired by a true story of shipwreck and cannibalism that took place on Boon Island, Maine in 1710. “I wanted to get inside the heads of these tormented guys, whose suffering drove them to do the unthinkable,” says Hardy. “It’s an grim subject, obviously, but a great one for Tony, Dan, and Steve, because they are masterful at covering the full range, musically – from utter darkness to the thrill of cheating Death.”
In 2022 the band released Burn Pit (Unable Records), a four song EP exploring some classic Mexican Ape-Lord themes: inner demons, dangerous work, ritualistic bloodshed, and apex predators. “We weren’t about to stop making music just because the world was coming to an end,” says Nichols.
