If you put the Backstreet Boys and their fans in a room and lit it on fire, the members of The Hong Kong Sleepover would be the four guys outside drinking Jack Daniels, shooting off automatic weapons and roasting marshmallows . And feel free to substitute the Backstreet Boys for any dime-a-dozen, so-called band that has left their skid marks on the under garments of the music industry. What, to many, may sound like a southern-fried version of a jihad, it is abundantly clear that The Hong Kong Sleepover really have declared their holy war upon those that suck upon the teat of Casey Casem….and they brought plenty of refreshments and ammunition.

Before you begin to point your fingers at their faults, you should know that The Hong Kong Sleepover already knows they’re not perfect, nor pretend to be. In fact, the more distorted and deranged you think they are, the closer you are to what really drives them, which is honesty. An honest, stripped down approach to the genre of music that brought you Motorhead, Anthrax, Corrosion of Conformity, and Metallica (pre-haircuts) is the desired result of their live performances, which are more like metaphoric sacrifices to the god of metal – who resembles Lemmy Kilmister, only with horns. It was this deity that was summoned to produce their first LP, Mustard, which was released in the autumnal equinox of 2009, and contains ten original tracks. The album is available in record stores and on iTunes.

Mustard is a collaborative effort by all four members of The Hong Kong Sleepover, who formed almost exactly half-way around the world from the Far Eastern city from which they take their name. While Macomb, Illinois has seven million people less than Hong Kong, it did have the good fortune of being the residence of band co-founders Ted Renner (lead vocals) and Pete Thompson (lead guitar/vocals) who quickly recruited Mike Kump to play drums. Several months later, the band found a young, but able Statesboro, Georgia native Waylon Brown to play bass. With Brown in place, The Hong Kong Sleepover immediately felt as if all pistons were firing. “The four of us work really well together,” Renner said. “We were able to shred the veil of anonymity and demand that our ‘laugh at yourself and your puny existence’ message be heard.”

While Renner demands that The Hong Kong Sleepover fans take a tongue-in-cheek approach to their music, make no mistake, this is not the approach the band took when recording their debut album. The making of Mustard is an extremely serious venture that is evident early in the album by the Mao Zedong-like call to arms, “Fist of Consequence.” An evidently humorous song, “The Greasy Wheel,” follows later, but there is nothing funny about the driving rhythm and lead guitar that make this track a staple in the band’s live shows. And the arrogant march of “Bad as They Come” follows an Alice Cooper-like power chord slither, and is only complemented by the thrash metal “Hatchet Man,” which, instead of letting you slowly off the hook at the end of the album, adds that one last, but much needed “fuck you.”

So, until The Hong Kong Sleepover pushes Mustard through the government controlled airwaves and kicks you in the head while you unconsciously suffocate inside your leased Ford Focus, take the initiative to pass through their proverbial “demilitarized zone” and experience them live. And don’t forget to bring some marshmallows. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.