The Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party may be quite a mouthful to say, but that's probably appropriate, considering what an earful their music is. When not simply savaging listeners' ears with sheer intensity and volume (judging by the ringing in my ears the day after their last show, their amps go up to 11... thousand), this Columbus quartet challenges audiences to keep up with their super-schizophrenic genre hopping.

The Band tried distilling their insane live shows (remember the giant robots that first danced with, and then attacked, the band at Comfest?) onto plastic with the release of their self-titled debut disc last weekend. To celebrate, they held a CD release party at Bernie's Saturday night.

An intense line-up of heavy hitters The Bloody Matt Dillons, Washout Corp. and Eric Wrong & The Do-Right softened up the audience with three beautifully, brutally hard and fast sets before The Party decimated what ear drums were still functioning. In addition to cuts from their album like Raising the Mammoth and La-Di-Da, The Party also blasted through Smoof Cribinal, their contribution to the recently released Cringe.com/pilation, and covers of Mr. Sandman and the Royal Kilted Yaksmen anthem from the long defunct Ren & Stimpy Show. No real surprise that one of Columbus' most cartoonish bands consists of some big cartoon fans.

-J. Caleb Mozzocco
Columbus Alive, Vol. 18, No. 41
October 11, 2001