Gorch Fock

GORCH FOCK I loved the first album by this seven-piece Austin band, but it turns out it was just a warm-up for Lying and Manipulating (Australian Cattle God), which builds their Melvins/Buttholes-inspired, all-over-the-map art punk into something that rivals the best work of their heroes. And if it lacks the righteous shock of hearing this kind of thing for the first time, that's not really Gorch Fock's fault, is it? Riffs skitter and spatter like blood on a slaughterhouse wall, creamy synth-bubbles ooze out as if from slackened jaws, and just when you're feeling most scattered and discombobulated, there's a fist-pumping, acid-rock version of Neil Young's "Ohio." - Monica Kendrick - The Chicago Reader

Gorch Fock
Lying and Manipulating (Australian Cattle God)
Named for a sailor poet who drowned two months after joining the German navy, Austin's Gorch Fock win their sea legs handily on this second release. The seven-person assortment of local noise-rock notables functions as a kind of seafaring vessel, with two drummers in the engine room, layers of guitars and effects providing steerage, and captained, nominally, by trombone-tooting frontman Joey Ficklin. Rising to 50-foot waves of sonic tumult, Lying and Manipulating suggests a ghost ship adrift on the storm-tossed Baltic after some great naval battle, maybe even the one that claimed the real Gorch Fock in 1916, and watched over by the skeletal mariner prince of the CD's stunning inlay. Ficklin is as enamored of voice-doctoring as Gibby Haynes, his vocals often disembodied – when he's not screaming in anguish. In its own evil Fuckemos death march kind of way, "Jefferson Davis Pinkus" is even catchy, with its menacing/sweet refrain: "I hate everyone, I hate everyone, everyone but you." Besides scattered references to ships, docks, shores, and whores, a closing cover of Neil Young's "Ohio" is a pointed tip of the sailor's cap to the election-deciding swing state. What it's saying, apparently, is that this lumbering crew of demented Texas sea dogs will soon be sailing up the river to destroy you. Or at least drink all your beer. - Chris Gray - The Austin Chronicle

If Atlanta's Mastodon personify the mythical sea beast of their 2004 album Leviathan, Austin's Gorch Fock represent the ragtag Pequod crew hot on its tail. Trombone-blasting frontman Joey Ficklin often performs in full midshipman regalia, and their tempestuous, heaving songs are dotted with nautical images. The original Gorch Fock, see, was an ill-fated sailor and eventual German folk hero.
"I compare him to the German Cesar Chavez," Ficklin figures. "Not politically, but in every town there's a Gorch Fock street or Gorch Fock elementary school."
"My ex-girlfriend grew up in Germany, and she went to Gorch Fock Elementary School," confirms guitarist Kevin Stack.
Rounded out by drummers Jason Morales and Aaron Seibert, guitarist Bryan Nelson, and effects utilityman Jeff Swanson, the evocative septet's true anchor is bassist Win Wallace. While in local noise-rockers Gong Li and listening to practice-space neighbors the Snails, Wallace began seeing connections and proposed a merger. The sketches that became Gorch Fock's 2003 debut came pouring out one feverish night; the seafaring accoutrements soon after.
"It was this engraving Kevin had of [the name] Gorch Fock," Wallace says. "We just liked the way it sounded, and the naval theme started to snowball. I draw all the posters, and for a while I was doing naval-themed posters for every show.
"It's become a whole metaphor for the band," he continues. "Like we're on this fantasy ship in our own minds."
Thunderous second LP Lying and Manip-
ulating (Australian Cattle God) takes Gorch Fock into uncharted waters. The more collaborative new effort, they joke, is their "exercise in democracy."
"I like the fact that other people have taken some things in different directions," agrees Wallace. Nonetheless, he admits to assuming a firmer hand over their in-progress next one, which Ficklin calls "fire and classic rock."
"I don't think I'm the best musician in the band by any stretch," Wallace says. "It just works a little better if somebody's putting their foot down. - Chris Gray
- The Austin Chronicle

Gorch Fock
Lying and Manipulating
Australian Cattle God
Contrary to what you might think, Gorch Fock is neither an exotic animal (do not feed the Gorch Fock) nor a nasty swear word. Originally a German sailor doomed to die and then destined for heroic folklore, Gorch Fock is presently a seven-piece Austin, Texas, band with a newly released album titled Lying and Manipulating. Highlights include “Penance/Giant Mast,” a reverberating tune inflected with dramatic crash cymbals and haunting sea chants, topped with apish, lunatic vocals. Equally theatrical is “Brazilian Whack Job,” which delivers a warped rendition of the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water” and then plummets into feverish riffing.
The album is soaked in Melvins-ish intonations and spattered with the manic trombone work of frontman Joey Ficklin, who manages to sneak intermittent ska-like tempos in with spastic horn squealing a la John Zorn. Despite other familiar cadences (it wanders into ’70s psychedelia) and one familiar cover (Neil Young’s “Ohio”), Lying and Manipulating is fairly unpredictable in its cavernous lo-fi sound and alarmingly strange samples. The problem is that Gorch Fock’s wild nature and dueling drummers sitting face to face aren’t fully realized to the naked ear. This would seem to be a creature best seen live. (Erika Fredrickson)
- The Missoula Independent

GORCH FOCK - This seven-piece band of busy musicians from Austin released its first self-titled album a year ago -- what, you didn't feel the Mount Saint Helens-like rumble? Maniacal and Explosive and wickedly confident, Gorch Fock incorporates trombone, electronics, and a head spinning double-drum-kit attack into an inventive, art-metalish funhouse that shoulbe be just the thing for anyone who's ever wondered why they don't make bands like the Melvins anymore. - Monica Kendrick - Chicago Reader

Gorch Fock
Emo's Jr., Sunday, March 16 Just how loud was Sixth Street early Sunday night? Still belching enough live rock & roll noise pollution that even with the front hatch of Emo's tree fort thrown asunder, you still couldn't hear Gorch Fock down the street. A street mostly deserted, the dead and wounded from the previous night's Roman bacchanalia carted off, and yet bands blared from every fifth doorway even though only two Red River dives (Beerland and Emo's) were still SXSW showcasing. The cacophony was such, in fact, that it wasn't until you stepped inside Emo's front room that you were thrown against the back wall of the club by this new Austin mastodon. There, in the darkened corner, as if unearthed from the Club Foot strata of Scratch Acid and Butthole Surfers, was a roaring beast straight outta Austin's glory hole. The two guitarists posted sentry on the floor, unleashing a lava flow of molten metal, almost went unnoticed in the shadow of two full drum kits on the small bar stage, not to mention the pair of yetis hammering out a mutant jungle beat like the Allman Brothers bulldozing the rain forests in hell. There may have been a keyboardist -- there is on the group's thunderous debut -- but the trombonist climbing the rafters and screaming into the mic just outside the range of two film projectors and their midnight propaganda stole what little spotlight there was. It was all one obliterating avalanche, "Shirts vs. Skins" and a half-dozen others broken up every six or seven minutes by brief band inhalations, but the punishing air mass being tsunamied by the band was torrential. They just wanted to fock, fock, fock, fock you. A soundgarden from the Lost World.
- Austin Chronicle

Lying and Manipulating
((Australian Cattle God))
Stupid fuckin' indie rockers always forget what "lo-fi" actually means. Despite what people say or what journalists write, Pedro the Lion's not lo-fi. Bright Eyes isn't lo-fi. Joanna Newsom's not lo-fi. THIS is lo-fi. Gorch fucking Fock. (Because you should know shit like this, Gorch Fock is Ireland's poet/sailor hero/icon, who lost his life at sea and still moans verse from the seafloor.) Lying and Manipulating opens with tape hiss, ends with tape hiss, and sometimes the hissy, high-strung, punishing wall of trombones and guitars and yelling becomes totally un-listenable - though in the best possible way. It's like Rocket from the Crypt demos if Rocket actually had good ideas insteada good hair and wasn't afraid to alienate their boring mid-30s audience by getting nasty-loud. This is lo-fi to the grave. And lo-fi beyond the grave. Then, beyond that. Gorch Fock, the real Gorch Fock, would be proud. He is proud. He just wrote a poem about it and the sea quakes with his wrath and pride.
--Adam Gnade
- Kitty Magic.com

Pop Matters -
Gorch Fock, Lying And Manipulating (Australian Catte God) Rating: 7
When you see the band's name, you might think it's taken from one of the deleted scenes of Deliverance. But this album is a stoner rock fan's manna. The opening "Prologue: Mexia Creek Crossover" is thick with riffs and an early Floydian-meets-QOTSA vibe. Not a cookie cutter album by any means, guitars and other instruments fade in and out to create the perfect trippy trek in your head with a metal underbelly. It's a tweaked out Primal Scream before coming to a stop nearly six minutes later. And the Austin-based septet continues this with horns during the funkier, almost Sly-tinged "Scott Jernigan". "Bono" is more formulaic and garage-ish but "Tap Is Crack" is pure bombast. Think Fred Durst meeting Frank Zappa and you should get the idea. "Brazilian Whack Job" and also "Jefferson Davis Pinkus" are other odd little nuggets evoking thoughts of Ian Curtis singing to Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive". "Penance/Giant Mast" is completely insane however, going from chant to sonic nuttiness in just over a minute. Perhaps the mainstream effort is "Tampa Pentagram" which is still spacey but the most coherent of the lot. A cover of Neil Young's "Ohio" ends this incredibly impressive but insane, joyful yet disconcerting sound.
— Jason MacNeil
- Popmatters.com

In the grand tradition of the Butthole Surfers and the Melvins, the Austin-based septet Gorch Fock pummels eardrums with adrenaline-fueled hardcore and noise-rock. The band's new "Lying and Manipulating" melds electronics and horns with chugging guitar riffs and brutally propulsive rhythms, creating the kind of abrasive avent-metal that thrived in the 1980s on SST records. - The Onion

"infamous Texas-noise underground freaks"

"Frantic, affectedly yelping Austin seven-piece...leaning toward the Tom Waits (as in dark cabaret shtick) side of Jesus Lizrds pigfuck" - The Village Voice