With its Casio bleats, guitar blurts and mental-patient vocals, HUG's "Lickable" was the outrageous Austin CD of the early 2000s.  For their anarchic live show, expect hideous dancers and flying debris.
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There are many notable sex and drug songs on this 16-track HUGfest.  These signature sex songs are worthy of repeat play: "Hot Bucket"(where the band gets a little vocal assistance from friends and fans); "Pussy Bomb" (which sounds like a bombardment of, you know . . .); "White Boys"(I learned a lot about perverted white man - and women too); and "Lickable Hole" (the orgasmic keyboards and vocals are a scream).  Yet it's the druggy lounge pop like "Bombed" that surprised me the most.  Is this HUG's version of chillout music?  Cool . . . The war on drugs has obviously taken a backseat to Dubya's dubious war on terrorism, and "HUG Says Yes" liberates the prisoners of the former war - at least in song.  But it’s the band’s twisted hypocritical fascist yarn “Freebase” and the socially incorrect “Runaway” that have the most interesting things to tell us.  The crown jewel of depravity goes to “You May Now Wash”, which shocked me because lyrically it leaves some things to the listener’s own depraved imagination.  And somehow it all ends on a lighter, more upbeat note than the first HUG album.
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To put it charitably, Hug is an acquired taste; namely, a taste acquired after several hits off the crack pipe. Obsessed with cunnilingus, drugs, and the KGB (don't ask), the local Casio-worshipping threesome is just the ticket for anyone who finds Tenacious D too refined or Ween just not creepy enough. The Hug m.o. is simple: "Scott van Hug" picks out a childlike melody, complete with peppy prefab rhythm, on his keyboard bank; "Jack Hug" supplies texture with a wash of bong-resin-clouded guitar; and "Blair Hug" carries on like the unholy bastard child of Daniel Johnston and Larry Flynt. During one memorable moment Hug wonders what Hitler would have been like as a girl. (The answer: She would shave her pubic hair, silly.) Mind you, Hug does possess a certain charm -- "Pussy Bomb" comes complete with real explosions! And John Ashcroft himself can't match the patriotism of "All American Man," wherein Blair orally pleasures his partner not for himself, or even her, but for his country. (Heh heh, I said country.) So far over the top it's all the way back on the bottom, Lickable is essential only for those who let their subscription to Screw lapse, are barred from the neighborhood adult bookstore, or are in need of therapy. Lots of therapy.
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