Unitron Sick Puppies-Dog's Breakfast

'Dog's Breakfast' is the debut EP by Alternative metal/Hard rock band Sick Puppies. Before Sick Puppies became internationally known with their 2006 hit 'All the Same', they were one of those underground bands that were putting out high-quality music that nobody heard. This EP shows many differences from their later releases, almost sounding like an entire different band.

Unlike most alt metal bands popping up at the time, such as System of a Down, Finger Eleven, Mudvayne, and others, Sick Puppies took the doom-ridden Alice in Chains/Soundgarden route instead of the more experimental approach. This EP shows heavy use of diminished guitar chords and an overall gloomy atmosphere a la Black Sabbath. One of my favorite songs and best examples of this is 'Buried', which begins similar to Black Sabbath's 'Warning'. Soon the gloomy guitars come in with some strong raw vocals by Shimon Moore. The guitar later picks up and gets faster. 'No Hoper' is another one of my favorites, taking some rap metal influence which would be seen more in the next release. Emma Anzai gives some great gloomy bass grooves, with the guitar and drums soon picking up. 'Unbalanced' is another great doom/grunge track, with great driving guitar work coming in later.

There is also some punk influences on this release, especially the really short songs. 'Catch 22' and 'It's Like' are the two songs where I hear the punk influences. 'It's Like' features Anzai on vocals, and reminds me a lot of The Runaways. Probably the only real flaw about this release is the production, it feels less like an EP on a label, and more like an independent demo tape. It does add a raw sound to the music, which fits in this releases favor to a certain extent.

Overall, this is an excellent EP but unfortunately there were a pretty small amount of copies made so really the only way to hear it is from YouTube. I would love to have a copy, but if you did get lucky and find a copy, it most likely would be a ridiculous amount of money. So all I can really say is, give it a listen. Recommended to any fans of the gloomy side of alternative metal.

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