Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader,” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out Komondor’s A Giant Is Coming and the Giant Is Going to Kill You.

Ever wondered what the fuck that thing is jumping over a hurdle on the cover of Beck’s Odelay? Wonder no more: it’s a komondor, a kind of dog first bred in Hungary to guard livestock. Why a sheep or goat would respond to a barking mop with anything but mocking laughter is beyond me, but give credit where it’s due: that dreadlocked mutt has been featured on two great albums now, the aforementioned Odelay back in 1996, and now A Giant Is Coming and the Giant Is Going to Kill You by Kingston, NY-based noise-rockers Komondor.

Of course only one of those acts went so far as to name itself after the dog, and given the shagginess and ferocity of Komondor’s sound, their name makes a lot of sense. This is noise-rock in its purest sense, which is to say completely impure – quicksilver guitar riffs that are mangled by bass-heavy recording, heavy bits that get bastardized by high-end guitar skronk, groove that’s constantly auto-cannibalized and then regurgitated.

In the grand tradition of Amphetamine Reptile stalwarts like Today Is the Day, Melvins and Unsane, Komondor write songs that require chops but sound like they’re caked in mud. And while tunes like “Ghost Sickness” and “Brown Pool” are oppressively heavy, their doomiest riffs bathe in amp rumble and bassist/vocalist Big Lazlo’s frying canola howl. In other words, Komondor revel in the post-sledgehammer splatter as much as the impact itself.

There’s a whole bunch of great AmRep-indebted noise-rock out there these days. So what sets Komondor’s debut apart from the latest from Fight Amp, Millions or The Mass (all of which you should seek out, b-t-dubs)? Because these guys have a sense of humor as gonzo as their music. You can see it in the pastel cover art; you can hear it in Lazlo’s lyrics, should you choose to listen past the music; you can sense it in the fact that they named their band after the most ridiculous looking dog on the planet. I slept on A Giant Is Coming and the Giant Is Going to Kill You for over a year. Stop the insanity and name your own price for this now.

(4 out of 5 horns up)

-SR

Get A Giant Is Coming and the Giant Is Going to Kill You here.