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Retten Til Forskellighed / Break It All

When I review Pringles I can't just sit there, crack open a specific flavour and write down my findings. This is mostly because Pringles are the 98° of the chip world (if they never existed most people wouldn't really care). I have to add in a little twist to make it fun for me (and not just a mouthful of mediocre at best, terrible at worst "chips").

I've had a couple salt and vinegar tubes of "chips" waiting in the salty cellar for a while. I had picked up a Pringles tube a while ago intending to review it in the mass Pringles review of 2016. At some point before said review I came accross some no name (the brand sold at Superstore) chip cans I came to the conclusion that, due to salt and vinegar being one of my favourite flavour families, I would consume the can of Pringles S&V against the no name S&V (this was mostly out of a curiosity whether all tube chips tasted like flavoured potato paste and/or salty garbage). It took me a while to get around to this battle of chumpions, but finally a few weeks ago I (with the help of my wife) got down to brass tacks. I placed 4 children's bowls, 2 tubes of chips and 1 sense of self righteousness on the counter, then asked m'lady to put chips from the tubes into the bowls (at least 1 had to be different from the others). I know you're on the edge of your seats right now so I won't drag this out anymore, my findings are as follows:
 
General Statements (about all 4 bowls): they all smell roughly the same, faint salt & vinegar. Visually the texture of all the chips is the same, formed flat chips.

Pea green bowl: appear more square than chips in other bowls and slightly thicker than the opaque green and orange bowls. *jam into maw* Somewhat aggressive vinegar..on the top side of the chips (oddly little to no seasoning on the 'bottom' side of chip). Flavour is semi-evenly distributed throughout the tops of the chips. These taste more like chips than previous formed "chip" flats that I've had in the past. [my guess - no name]

Teal bowl: Crunch is okay. There's a faint overly manufactured aftertaste but it might just be in my head because they're tube chips. It is really odd that they would only season 1 side of the chips. Superior to Pringles. [my guess {goes without saying} - same chips as pea green bowl, no name]

Opaque green bowl: They technically crunch. Look like what I remember Pringles look like. The texture once in my mouth is less than desirable. The aftertaste is chalky dehydrated potato. [my guess - Pringles]

Orange bowl: There's a faint salt & vinegar flavour, emphasis on FAINT and SALT (vinegar is almost non-existent [at least not on the levels that I prefer]). Typical mush in my mouth after a couple chomps followed by the chalky gritty post consumption mouth. [my guess - Pringles]

At the end of my assessments I checked with my wife, my guesses were correct. Pringles, why bother.

As I planned this salty post to be a comparison of (assumed to be) similar products, I had been holding off on listening to a few used records that I had picked up late this past fall so I could also do a blind taste test, WITH MY EARS!! (I decided against the blind part because one of the albums song titles were in a foreign language, would have been a bit of a tip off).

The Assassinators - Sigt Efter Hjertet: The label is Rebel Scene (a logo that looks political leaning) and the artwork looks like it is in the hardcore punk/crust vein. Packaging was great, the 'lyric' book is more of a zine (that reveals that this is a Danish band) with both danish lyrics (the way they're sung) and english translations along with song explanations (in english) that have more words than the actual songs. Was my guess on the bands sound correct?..No. The Assassinators are more along the lines of early to mid 2000's melodic hardcore with sung female vocals. The lead singer's voice actually reminds me a lot of Tsunami Bomb's Agent M. There's harmonic backing vocals. Some noodling from the guitars with short solos. Slightly poppy (as a lot of 2000's melodic hc was). All in all not the sound that I expected. The liner notes refer to them being crust punk. I'm not a crust aficionado but I don't hear that in the music, however the lyrics reflect crust leanings..I'd put them more in an anarcho punk category..does it really matter. Good shit.

Feederz - Vandalism: Beautiful As A Rock In A Cop's Face: If that's not an aggressive album title I'm not sure what is. Based on the album artwork and title I had Feederz pegged as, once again, hardcore punk with a potential at crust leanings. Once again, a swing and a miss..or at least a foul ball. I put the needle down and was met with something closer to surfy garage punk than crust. There's some hardcore influence but it's definitely not quite fast or heavy enough. The vocal delivery is quite playful (Jelloish at times) with lyrics that are quite angry and anti, just, like, anti in general. Feederz sort of sound like an instrumentally mellowed out Dead Kennedys. Anarchy man. (googling later I found out that Feederz are OG's [formed in '77] and were associated with Alternative Tentacles [Let Them Eat Jellybeans] and that scene. Which makes complete sense). Once again, good shit.

Two branches of  the anarchy tree, one heartfelt one snotty..both a worthwhile listen.

Stay hydrated,
Marc 

ps. just went to the Pringles twitter account. Under their account description they have "NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO WITH ’EM, YOU DON’T JUST EAT ’EM!". I'm not sure exactly what they mean, but I prefer to think they agree with me, those fake "chip" phoneys. YOU NEVER EAT 'EM..like, unless you like to ramble about chips..and have a problem *sigh*.

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