Despite the hilarious name, Fudge Tunnel were one of the earliest and finest examples of Sludge Metal/Noise Rock releasing their first self titled EP in 1989. Hailing from Nottingham in England these guys used to practice their metal above the local bowling alley, which could have influenced their sound?
Fudge Tunnel had built up their reputation around extreme noise, loud guitars and ironic sense of humour and were the UK's answer for bands like The Melvins, Nirvana and Godflesh but perhaps louder and heavier than those bands. The UK music press was in love with the band initially and NME magazine even awarded Fudge Tunnel with a single of the week for their self titled EP declaring that "Absolutely and totally the best single ever to be released in 1990. Total nine guitar attack-rock"
After their initial EP's "Fudge Tunnel" in 1989 and "The Sweet Sound of Excess" in 1990 they were signed to Earache records where they released their first album "Hate Songs in E Minor" which attracted a large amount of press because the original artwork for the album was confiscated by the Nottingham Vice Squad because of its hand drawn depiction of a decapitation. That all came about as John Zorn from the band Pain Killer (who were signed to Earache) flew to england with the image for his 1991 EP "Guts of a Virgin" which is a photo of an Autopsy on a young girl, the english customs went a bit crazy and got the vice squad involved who then raided the Earache offices looking for anything offensive or violent to which they found the image for the Hate Songs in E Minor album cover which they promptly confiscated which was a little ridiculous.
Fudge Tunnel released 2 more full length albums in 1993 and 1994 in "Creep Diets" and "The Complicated Futility of Ignorance" which never reached the critical acclaim of their original album but for me were better, and have aged extremely well over the years. I find myself putting them on every now and then because it's just sheer noise and heavy weight extremism. Alex Newport the bands Vocalist and Guitarist went off to work with Max Cavalera on his Nailbomb experiment which released one studio album and one live album of their Dynamo open air performance.
Soon after Fudge Tunnel decided to call it quits and the band packed up and went their separate ways but not before leaving a lasting impression on the early Sludge and Noise genres. Alex Newport is a successful music producer now in New York having produced albums for At The Drive-in, City and Colour, The Mars Volta among others, He also has his own band Theory of Ruin that has released 1 album. The Bass player David Ryley ran his own record Label BGR for a while, and the drummer Adrian Parkin played with the band Tubesurfer until 1996 when they broke up and now works as a quantity surveyor in Bolton.
Fudge Tunnel were one of the heaviest sludge bands in UK at the time and maybe even the world, it's criminal how underrated they were, and are, even now. They deserve a seat at the table with some of the big boys like the Melvins or Godflesh but for some reason have been completely overlooked. I implore you to check them out and see what you think.
Here's some tracks to wrap your ears around.
