THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The venomous blues-punk, swamp-garage sounds of The Cutthroat Brothers conjure bands like The Gun Club, The Cramps, The Stooges, and even a taste of Sonic Youth and Hawkwind.
The gruesome twosome, along with punk legend Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehose, The Stooges) are back in road-sharpened form. Jason Cutthroat’s grinding, straight-razor slide guitar and Zeke refugee Donny Paycheck’s pummeling, heavy-as-hell drums beat down on you in a blues-punk soaked fever. Watt provides the blood-like glue that brings the monster’s heart to life.
As Devil in Berlin starts to play, You can taste the packed booze and smoke filled caverns of every garage-punk club in Europe. The walls are like lungs, expanding as the audience falls into a feverish trance as if possessed. You can hear the crowd’s screams and the sinister laughter of The Devil himself. Songs like the title track, Been Away, and Love, Drugs, Etc. provide hooks that stick in your brain like motorcycle boots on a grimy dance floor.
Screaming down the Autobahn like a rat-rod hearse on fire, this is music born from punk touring. The Sweeney Todds of punk served a successful slashing of Europe that ended right before Covid came and stopped everything rock ’n’ roll, and otherwise. Devil in Berlin oozes a seedy, primal slime that grips onto you, feeds greedily off of your energy and can only survive in the dark corners of the soul. Each track a sordid, sinful sketch that can be directly attached to a night on tour. From cops in Rotterdam one day to rowdy audiences storming the stage in Liege, to audience members pulling at the Cutthroats’ blood and sweat-soaked smocks in Köln, this album bares every kick and scratch — then pours a bottle of whiskey over them so you never forget.
Jack Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney) produces and mixes his fifth collaboration with The Cutthroat Brothers in only three years since the band was formed, shaping Devil in Berlin to a razor-sharp edge fit to shave Satan himself. If The Cutthroat Brothers made a deal with the Devil, this is the soundtrack to the signing party.”
