The Milorganight EP

Consider this: Drugs Dragons’ newest six-song release, The Milorganight EP, takes its name from a locally produced fertilizer. If that doesn’t tip you off to the band’s toxic sensibilities and its gleefully depraved gallows humor, then perhaps song titles like “Pestilence In The Flesh,” or lines like “I see dead mouths / chatter in the dark. / I see dead mouths / gather in the park,” will. This is metal depravity of the highest order.

On their 2010 self-titled debut, frontman Luke Chappelle and company wallowed in the kind of theme-park horror and tongue-in-cheek doom and gloom made famous by Alice Cooper and The Cramps. But where Drugs Dragons’ first album sometimes seemed like an extended put-on—albeit a good one—Milorganight finds the band tightening the screws and coming into its own. Opener “Dead Mouths” is a chugging rocker slathered on top of a bed of swirling white noise, while “Milorganight” and “Icicle” are shout-along stompers highlighted by terrific (and funny) throat-shredding vocals from Chappelle. “Staring Into The Blue Screen” opens with a lethargic, druggy verse before suddenly giving way to a fist-pumping chorus, and the Brainbombs cover “Burning Hell” manages to capture the unhinged decadence of the Dragons’ live shows.

The Milorganight EP is an improvement in almost every way over Drugs Dragons’ solid debut. Brevity helps. No song breaks the three-minute mark, and the EP format lends itself to a more focused, potent effort. There’s not a snarl, not a howl, not a toxic whiff of musical pesticide wasted.

The band celebrates the release of The Milorganight EP Saturday, June 4 at the Cactus Club.