Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives

AMG Review of Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives

Patrick Kennedy
All Music Guide

Turbonegro's first studio album, Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives, easily the band's noisiest and most metallic, also featured the band's first vocalist, Harry Neger. In many ways, considering the time period (1991-1992), Hot Cars sounded not unlike something recorded and released via Amphetamine Reptile Records, with its insistence upon dirty, distorted guitar riffs; feedback; and mid-paced, stripped-down, raw ock pacing and arrangements. What's amazing about Turbonegro is that with each successive album, the band sounds remarkably different, even while maintaining enough signatures to retain a specific Turbonegro sound. Again, this is a dense, noisy album, grittier and blockier than Ass Cobra, even if not quite as incisive and furious. The following album, Never Is Forever, began the band's exploration of more dynamic sonic themes, using acoustic instruments, for instance, or greater melodic arrangements. That, of course, could have been the result of vocalist Hans Erik Dyvik Husby, who remained Turbonegro's frontman until his mental collapse during the Apocalypse Dudes tour, the band's swan song. [This edition of Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives includes five bonus tracks.]