Solo project debut cassette out of Rochester, NY. LETTUCE HEAD is the brain child grown and cultivated by Graham Allan Balcomb, with sporadic help from a handful of other Rochester, NY heavy hitters. Musically, most may know Graham as being involved with Rochester lunatic freak-out project CLIBBUS, but I personally always think of him as being a part of underrated Rochester hardcore-punk band MISSLE CRISIS. LETTUCE HEAD takes us on a wild flanged-out journey and has a little something for everyone within this ten song cassette. At first listen I thought I was in for a beautiful little instrumental psychedelic trip, as the opening track is an almost hypnotically pretty, simple, repetitive synth-heavy track. As soon as that ends, however, we are transported deep within the mind of the LETTUCE HEAD and are bombarded with an amalgamation of psychedelic rock, art-rock, hardcore-punk, post-punk, indiscernible confusion, and the kooky verses but never the catchy choruses of DEVO-esque tracks. Hell, there’s even a track that verges on the realm of underbite-rock. It’s Going To Be Cold In There Tonight could potentially most easily be viewed as a musical, not unlike CATS, where every member of a Brady Bunch type family (in this case all played by the same actor) performs their own personas soliloquy song. Hmm…maybe that’s not the easiest way to view it, but I think it helps make sense of it. In the end, unlike the humble leafy green, LETTUCE HEAD is anything but boring. Weird, unpredictable, and definitely worth digging in and taking a bite of.

Label: self-released

Band: LETTUCE HEAD