Yesterday Jeff The Brotherhood’s excellent label Infinity Cat announced a new release for their ongoing cassette series curated by Casey Weissbuch, Cruisin’ For Filth by a sludge metal band called Breast Massage, an all-male trio.
The Nashville band is a supergroup composed of members from Jeff The Brotherhood, Diarrhea Planet and King Karl and described in the press release as “the loudest damn band in Nashville.” Breast Massage announced the release via a single premiere of “Bathing The Dog” on Stereogum.
A quick listen reveals the band are indeed, quite loud, and actually quite good, but the music itself was superseded by a discussion about the band’s name, which drew backlash on Twitter (Full disclosure, myself included), particularly in conjunction with the artwork the band released to accompany the tape:
Uproxx Music reached out to Breast Massage for comment and they have shared the following statement about the reception of the name and their line of reasoning:
“Our band writes about a lot of taboo topics including mental health, violence, and repressed sexuality, because these are topics that interest us and/or because they are things that we have dealt with in our lives. Oddly enough, the band name Breast Massage is in reference to the volume and “heaviness” of the sounds of the band, and how the air from the speakers is so strong that it massages on’s breast (not gender specific), and was not meant to be directly sexual. Our mistake was in neglecting to consider how it would be received, operating from only one perspective. We can see why the name of the band coupled with the image of the naked female body would be disturbing to some, especially without any context for the name, and we sincerely apologize to those people. Our intent is not malicious, as we are all respectful human beings. This dialogue is an important one that we embrace and support.”
The band previously released a record in 2014 called Soiled Fantasies, artwork for that release is included below.
