Local Rotation

Drunken Thunder

Cheap Acceptable Kill

Honest Abe’s Custom Records

Homegrown garage power rock is Drunken Thunder’s stock-in-trade. Problem is, it’s also pretty damn good. As a matter of fact, Drunken Thunder’s particular brand of twisted, sloppy aggro could stand shoulder to shoulder with that of bands from ¨ber-hip labels like Man’s Ruin or Kill Rock Stars. But for now, Drunken Thunder (Rigoberto Perez Montano, Eric Cristopher Busch, Robert Lee Williams, Damon Paul O’Banion and Trevi Sebastian Biles), which formed in March 1998, is paying its dues in Houston and releasing its debut through former Butthole Surfer Jeff Pinkus’s Honest Abe’s imprint.

The balance Drunken Thunder manages to strike on Cheap Acceptable Kill is between lowbrow and insightful. On songs such as “Me, You & A Buck A’Piece” and “Monticello,” simple, nearly stupid, riffs are anchored to a word or four and just plain banged out. But the bangin’ and the catchiness of the riffs are sincere. It all sounds like loud, live rock ‘n’ roll, man.

There are some pure novelty numbers on this disc, “The Cock,” with its dime-store synth riff and faux-rooster voice-over, foremost among them. But more often, what could be dismissed as silly is actually just another facet of the derangement. The garage psychedelia of “Nielszilla,” with its trumpets and overtly vibro guitars, is campy, but it’s also without pose, artfulness or any sort of low-fi pretense. And it rocks.

Similarly, the combo of “Loaded and Loose” and “Loaded and Loose (Pt. 2)” delves into “artistic” waters that could be dismissed as a B-grade Zappa knockoff if not for its naturalness. “(Pt. 2)” starts off like a spoof on rap’s penchant for recycling ’70s loops before it suddenly turns into a Neanderthal stomp, giving the brain that feeling of panicked bliss, like when you know you’ve gone too far and can’t do a thing about it.

Perhaps the best song on Cheap Acceptable Kill, however, is “Dogfood,” whose straight use of the piano creates a garage-meets-classic-rock gem. Then there’s the overt humor of the disc’s closing number, “Balls ‘cross the Nose,” a little sea shanty sing-along about a drunk who waits for you to pass out — just for a moment — before he puts his balls on your nose, which is funny. Really. In its context. The perfect chaser for all that has come before.

If there’s anything you just can’t deal with on this disc, it’s that, at 18 songs in 36 minutes, it’ll be over too soon.