SEVEN #7 albums to cure your hurty tummy
Big pharma doesn't want you to hear this
We’ve all been there. Doubled over in pain, cheek resting on cold, questionably hairy tile, crying to the heavens as an endless chorus of warping glub-glubs emanates from your gut. No, you haven’t swallowed a lava lamp in a drunken bid to prove yourself, you’re just going through one of humanity’s oldest rites: the tummy ache. In-keeping with gatekeep!’s twofold commitment to tackling sensitive topics and recommending questionable music, I’ve taken it upon myself to attack this blight on humanity head-on with an unquestionably insightful article that will violently massage your stomach, knead your intestines, and foghorn sweet nothings down your ear canal. Sorry for the clickbait, there isn’t actually any Backstreet Boys on the list.
The earliest recorded stomach ache dates roughly 300,000 years when an unnamed early human ingested something that didn’t agree with them during the trial-and-error phase of existence. In a later series of pictograms etched into ancient stone a figure is crudely depicted with squiggles in its inflated belly, and a single word written above in an as-yet undeciphered language (though I think it’s fairly safe to assume the word was ‘ow’). This individual’s probable death, though tragic, could have easily been averted if music had progressed beyond the twig/ stone era, as fantastically influential as it was. As any good doctor will tell you, music heals all wounds.
So, in my capacity as resident gatekeep! surrogate gastro enthusiast, I present to you a carefully curated album selection to help you with a broad variety of stomach issues, handily grouped by specific cause. Please bookmark this page, for you know not when the monstrous affliction will take hold next. Also, you know how much big pharma hates someone who actually understands how to properly diagnose/ prescribe (and free of charge, I might add) muscling in on their business. Should this post disappear and I vanish into thin air, please remember/ avenge me.
The chosen records are here to relieve stress, help you get over that unfeeling partner’s walkout, and get your bowels hopping, skipping and running once again. Every LP has been tested extensively in laboratory conditions using rigid controls (I even shelled out on new headphones), with results that can best be described as ‘statistically ambiguous’. While results may vary (tee hee), the side effects may include enlightenment, emotional whiplash, and in rare cases, relief. At any rate, I can confidently claim that at least one selection may make your condition worse.
And as any good doctor will tell you, sometimes the only way out is through.
Heartbreak
Diagnosis: An acute stress response to romantic loss, associated with elevated cortisol levels, sleep disturbance, cardiomyopathy and being a general whinge
Prescription: Limp Bizkit - Results May Vary
As any good doctor will tell you, heartbreak is the worst and most painful thing in the history of the world ever and that feeling of your life coming to a premature end is not only justified, but accurate. So, allow me to gnaw the misery umbilical off in the most vicious of ways.
An album of such tonedeaf bluster it’ll have you questioning everything you thought you knew about music as an art form. When the weight of newly directionless love weighs heavy on your broad, rippling shoulders, what better way to alleviate than listening to a 33 year old man tell you how tough he is in one breath and then how much of a pissbaby he is in the next?
All levity aside, heartbreak does suck. That’s why it’s important to hear what misguided self pity with no filter truly sounds like, because it’ll have you wanting to straighten up faster than I call my mother when I get a boo-boo. Weird, stalkerish rage? ‘’Eat You Alive’’’s got you covered. Miserly ruminations? ‘‘Down Another Day’’’s here to show you how it’s done. Aimless, emotionally stunted word vomit, featuring Snoop Dogg? ‘‘Red Light - Green Light’’ will overfill your cup. Teenage angst through the lens of a man who should know better? ‘‘Almost Over’’ will make your own youthful indiscretions feel minimal. One-sided shower-thought tough-guy-isms? ‘‘Creamer’’ will make you re-evaluate all your pointless power fantasies.
There really is no end to the bizarre thematic shifts and cringey emotional displays on Results May Vary, which is precisely why it’s the perfect record to shake you out of your duvet-and-Netflix-all-day funk. Your problems are nothing compared to Fred Dursts’, and whether through realising that things could always be worse, or being exposed to the reality of being a human fun-sponge, there are few records that attack both your mental endurance and emotional response as thoroughly as this. If none of that works, the lack of musical cohesion and bloated run time (over one hour of protracted whining, let’s goooooo) will certainly wear you down to the point you’ll forget what was causing you such bother in the first place. Let the end justify the means, and submit your maudlin arse to this nonsense for your own good.
Jitters
Diagnosis: Transient anxiety characterised by heightened autonomic activity, including increased heart rate, shallow breathing, muscle tension and gastrointestinal discomfort
Prescription: Jessica93 - Who Cares
As any good doctor will tell you, stop being a baby and suck it up. You’re giving a big speech that’ll make or break your career? Well boo hoo, high-flyer, I’m so sorry the widdle butterflies are tickling your ribs. You’re nervy about becoming a parent? It’s okay! Go get yourself a glass of ice water. Then tip it over your head. Your ancestors gave birth and raised the kids while hunting sabre-tooth tigers, and you’re gathering yourself in your nice warm car before you commit to either? Proud of you, human. If I’m not being clear enough, nervousness is the most pathetic of all tummy problems, and it’s precisely why my research on this one stretched no further than taping halved ping pong balls over my eyes and listening to Pink Floyd in a darkened room.
So here’s an album to keep you at the baseline of oh mommy save me, where’s my teddy bear?. It’s vaguely soothing, yes, as I took some degree of pity on you, but it’s also flatly menacing in an indirect way. Slightly morose vocals, deceptively rich production and simple but affecting riffs give your brain something sturdy to cling to, but the slightly dark undercurrent will keep your feet planted firmly on the ground so you can ride the wave rather than fight against it. The trick with nerves is not letting them get a foothold. Once they’re in, you may as well just say the hell with it and listen to some good music.
Of course, if you think something calm and fluffy would serve you better in your hour of darkness, by all means go ahead and try it. But feathering a landing pad is only good if you plan to become similarly afflicted every time you have to voice your thoughts to a group of more than five people or jump off a top diving board during peak hours. Trust me on this one. This record has been carefully selected to tell you that the moment will pass, but also that you’re a loser who can do better. Subscribe for more affirmations.
Stress
Diagnosis: Physiological response to perceived threat or pressure, characterised by activation of sympathetic nervous system and release of cortisol and adrenaline
Prescription: Hux Flux - Cryptic Crunch
As any good doctor will tell you, the trick with stress is to subject yourself to ever-increasing levels of it until you snap like a matchstick. You may be tempted to ignore this advice and try some weepy guitar laden folk or upriver slowcore venture, but this is the worst possible angle to take. You want to shock that stress into remission: high-energy skittering beats, swirling synths, high pitched whines, incessant bass, minimal emotion, extreme tempos etc etc. Hux Flux’s brand of borderline-impossible-to-enjoy-without-drugs psytrance is exactly what the (questionable) doctor ordered.
Whether you’re macheteing your way through the geometric jungle of ‘‘Tripple Nipple’’ or inhaling the whizz-bang chemicals on ‘‘Experimenting With Potions’’ every track here will compound your stress levels in a slightly different way. That feeling of feeling snowed under at work or accidentally overspending on Tofifee? Let’s magnify that shit. We’re pushing your stress levels to a point where they either A) become so gargantuan they fizzle out entirely, or B) become so all-encompassing they lead to complete psychological grey-out. Neither of these outcomes are exactly optimal, but I’m an unlicensed researcher, not a therapist. My goal is find you the QUICKEST route to undoing physical/ psychological strain through music, not the most painless. Speed, not comfort. That’s what it says on my business cards, anyway.
The opening 15 seconds of this breakneck electronic LP will tell you everything you need to know about it, but it’s imperative you take the full 1 hour 17 minute dose to see results. Who knows, you may find yourself involuntarily jaw-clenching through sheer exposure, which is a win by any metric. There’s few electronic albums as simultaneously dirty, cerebral and precise as Cryptic Crunch, so be a good test subject and take all your medicine.
Constipation
Diagnosis: Infrequent/ difficult bathroom excursions, often accompanied by bloating, discomfort, and leaving things half-done
Prescription: Humanity’s Last Breath - Välde
As any good doctor will tell you, all of the best things in life will bind you internally. Delicious carby foods, taking the fun medications, inhaling paint fumes, jumping on a bicycle with the seat missing etc etc. Point is, no one wants to be reclined on the porcelain throne chugging endless orange juice (because mumsy swears it’ll help) while the day slowly turns to night outside. This is why I’m attempting to loosen not only your extra luggage, but the entire carriage and all the nuts and bolts with it.
Humanity’s Last Breath are here to perform what experts in the medical field would call ‘a bollock explosion’. An endless parade of downtuned guitars, guttural howls and production that’ll punch you into paralysis with its uncompromising density, Välde represents the point that the band stopped focusing solely on oppression and actually married it with something resembling musical texture. Its grooves underline its shattering production, and whether through vibrational intensity or simplistic aggression, whatever’s going on here is more than enough to shake things loose.
Tracks like ‘‘Glutton’’ and ‘‘Spectre’’ will wring and trail your intestines like a fleshy boa, undoing all those knots and blockages of your own making that cause you such discomfort. The warping guitars and rumbling percussion, not to mention the tremulous bass tone, are orchestrated to free you by sheer force, effective from twenty paces through subwoofers, headphones, phone speakers and hambone renditions (maybe). Sure, there are heavier bands out there that could certainly shoot you with a similarly heavy earful of Turbo Lax but, if I went any further down the line I’d be prioritising heaviness over dynamism, and I don’t want to brute force things along. Just firmly coax.
Unexplained gurgles
Diagnosis: Borborygmi (ikr)
Prescription: Rings of Saturn - Dingir
As any good doctor will tell you, Rings of Saturn are fucking dreadful. They’re also, begrudgingly, quite a good time, so as we’ve not much to go on with the diagnosis here, I’m prescribing an album as close in temperament to the sensation as possible.
With an aesthetic that can be narrowed down to machine gun guitars, demon-fart bass, metronome-on-crack percussion and extraterrestrial fetishisation, Dingir is an instrumental journey through some of the most overproduced, headache-inducing metal that doesn’t require a trip to the foundry. When it feels like a water jet is glubbing away in your guts, this highly engineered mess will mask the sound through sheer density, and then autotune it into something slightly less unpleasant.
Of course, it’s difficult to go for the root cause when the reason is unexplained, but at the very least we can have some fun with your issue — and if there’s one thing Rings of Saturn are, it’s fun. Also, they have ‘ring’ in their name, which seems relevant to the exit strategy.
Hangover
Diagnosis: (Inability to handle) alcohol-induced dehydration, headache, nausea, fatigue and gastrointestinal irritation
Prescription: Morgan Wallen - One Thing At A Time
As any good doctor will tell you, drinking is second only to vaping as the least cool thing you could possibly do. You’ve mixed your drinks, woken up face down in the gutter minus all the money you went out with, with a suspicious wetness on your lower half and a headache that would’ve had you on a month-long course of leeches in times past. After staggering home and collapsing on the sofa, the vinyl player starts winking at you. What do you play? Some lounge house? Spotify’s terrible comedown playlist? The answer is, and always will be, Morgan Wallen.
Who is Morgan Wallen, you ask? Said no one, unfortunately, because he’s pretty much ubiquitous with modern country at this point (but on the off-chance you are saying that, can I crawl inside your head and live there please?) with plenty of fans and detractors baring their teeth on both sides. What makes an overstretched Morgan Wallen double album the best choice for tackling hangover tummy distress? Quick question: are you familiar with Pavlov? This is classical conditioning. You get hungover, you get Wallen. Eventually your brain chooses water.
Drinking in any quantity is bad for you, mentally, physiologically, financially etc — negative reinforcement is a necessary evil. If you’re aware that you have to endure nearly two hours worth of Wallen’s wailing and whingeing set to some of the beigest boy howdy riffs you’ve ever heard, you’re far less likely to overindulge and far more likely to be kind to yourself. What’s that you say? You enjoy Morgan Wallen so the joke’s on me? Firstly, stop lying to yourself. Secondly, try saying that after five consecutive, stomach churning headphones-on listens when all you’d rather do is curl up in bed and think about a time when your head didn’t feel like a pneumatic drill. I must be cruel only to be kind, as the poet said. …although I would happily wallop you every time you chase the dragon, as Robbie Coltrane continued.
Questionable food choices
Diagnosis: Acute gastrointestinal irritation resulting from dietary excess or ingestion of spicy, fatty or poorly tolerated foods, often presenting as cramping, nausea, or self-pity
Prescription: The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Wild Gods
As any good doctor will tell you, the best food will burn you at both ends and ride a rollercoaster on its way through. Whether through too much scran or an underestimated vindaloo, it always feels like the worst kind of betrayal when the very thing that’s meant to sustain your body Trojan horses its way in then starts chipping away at your stomach lining. Aside from taking the meagrest bit of solace from the fact it’s entirely your fault, what else is there to do but listen to some music and wait for it to pass? You’ll be happy to know The Number Twelve Looks Like You traffic in some of the battiest metal around that, if nothing else, will certainly distract you from your poor dietary decisions.
Much like the barfight going on in your guts, Wild Gods is by turns quirky, heavy and extremely viscous, skating deftly between these modes without ever feeling arbitrarily smashed together. Good news for those who don’t vibe with the heavier side too much: the shifts are frequent and startling, offering far more than just aggression to help the distress pass. It has moments of indie respite for when the assault ceases and you have a moment of quiet to question your life choices, moments of guttural intensity for when those cramps kick in and you want to curse the cold, unfeeling gods who have forsaken you, and moments of weirdness for when you’re braced for the unpredictability of what happens next.
They’ve dispensed with a great many of the grind aspects that made them a cult favourite in the noughties, but this latest offering retains plenty of freewheeling metallic purges and Zappa-esque oddities, aligned with a grim uniformity that scores every moment. That bleakness will certainly be relateable for those struggling with food-induced issues, because if there’s one thing that being slapped upside the head by a binge will have you feeling, it’s relentlessly grim. Assume the foetal position and let your eyebrows raise in sporadic intrigue at this bizarre little journey.