**Mus-tard still has a hard time believing that someone actually wrote this.**

UGLY MUS-TARD, Ugly Mus-tard (Real Records) Why waste your time with Grey Poupon when you can have Ugly Mus-tard instead! This Dallas-based band will perk your senses with their ready-for-the-year-2000 style of aggressive rock that has been assaulting their local scene - both at the clubs and with airplay on KEGL and the area Z-Rock. Their unique style combines layers of industrial sounds with melodic crunching guitars and the forceful vocals of Kelly Barker. On the opening "Twist and Shake" the band squeezes out rhythm like meat through a grinder: it's powerful and crushing. From there its onto the churning groove of "Inkblot," the ethereal atmosphere of focus track "High" and "Hate" which snows you in with an avalanche of chunky riffs broken up with the occasional lapse into pensive electronic samples. At times you can hear a Killing Joke or Nine Inch Nails influence, at others they harken to Pantera, but they strike a happy medium that will appeal to many. Their apocalyptic outlook may not be pretty in pink, but we'll take the blackened chords of Ugly Mus-tard any day!