MÄAX, Six Pack Witchcraft (2010, Abyss)

The skull:
A skull, an ace, a pair of wings, two knives, and an umlaut: it sure looks like Mäax is trying to muscle in on Motörhead’s territory. Substitute Snaggletooth for Mäax’s more generic skull and you’d have a perfect cover for a mid 90s Motörhead album. The other two Mäax discs have entirely different covers that also incorporate 100% of these design elements, so I guess they’re part of this band’s “thing.”

The music:
Mäax are a bunch of thick guys in leather vests making extra-filthy, Venomized, Motörhead-style “rock and roll”. It’s shitty metal to anyone with ears, but bands like this always fetishize the inspiration they draw from Elvis or Buddy Holly or Little Richard or whomever. The vocals are so bad that even the grunting has to be run through effects to give them any character, and the playing is far too loose for its own good. But, the main offense of music like this is its blandness. It styles itself as hard and rebellious, but it comes off as just another bunch of too-old barroom braggarts trying to pass as 70s tough. Nein!
— Friar Johnsen