Laughing Hyenas

Hard Times + Crawl / Covers Laughing Hyenas

Double vinyl LP pressing containing the garage rockers' 1995 album Hard Times, their 1992 EP Crawl and bonus tracks. Laughing Hyenas was an American band that existed from 1985 to 1995. According to AllMusic, "At first, the band specialized in dirges overlaid with the tortuous, throat-shredding vocals of frontman John Brannon. As time passed, their blues connections became more and more explicit".

By the time the Hyenas went back into the studio, Kevin Strickland and Jim Kimball had left to form Mule and had left John and Larissa without a rhythm section. Many people thought this marked the end of the band. Not the case. Todd Swalla (founding member of Necros) stepped in on drums and Kevin Ries on bass. Todd is a much more subtle timekeeper than Jim and Ries had no problem locking in with him, but stayed in the background a little more than Strickland leaving Larissa to take up a little more of the slack. She rises to the occasion, her leads a bit more melodic than before, although still blanketed in a sheet of noise. Brannon’s anguished vocals will still peel the paint of the walls and over the new slightly toned down direction, somehow seem even more extreme.

Crawl is notably the only of the Hyenas records recorded in Detroit at White Room Studios.