When I first encountered New Albany Indiana Metal/Punk band BlueTongue this past year, I struggled to place them into a specific genre initially. With the release of their full length self-titled album, BlveTongve, I found their maddening blender of savagely skillful heavy, melodic, black and death metal with a definitive punk flavor to be heinously infectious in it’s unhinged non-conformity.

Demanding an acknowledgement of the decrepit conditions both social and economic, the young musicians behind this band are uncompromising in their approach.

Deep bass lines the constant foundation for each song, muted mid-temp riffs to the vocalist’s anguished screams, yelps, spoken word diatribes are rounded out by intensely physical drumming. Truly adroit heavy metal solos occur often, adding a layer of firm creative choice to remain unpolished, despite the obvious talent to do otherwise if so desired.

Riffs on several tracks cross over firmly into “Misfits” inspired punk territory, and while it can be jarring at first, overall this addition only adds to hold the attention and still feel part of the overall package of music. Tracks “Dead End” and “What Happen” provide an emotional reprieve from the heavier hitting portions of the album and soaring solos on “Don’t Paint the Ceiling”

I see much ahead for this ragged band of young people in Indiana, fighting for their corner of the world with tooth and nail, already performing live in local auditoriums, abandoned buildings, and turning up at inappropriate venues to frighten off scowling good folks of the town.

This album plants a strong seed of chaos, mayhem and refusal to conform to social conditioning by very strong willed artists, who have produced something as infectious as the so named Bluetongue virus afflicting the wild creatures of their native Indiana.