Labels: Progeria
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I wanted to like this album a lot, but I can’t quite get into it. The cool packaging of the 12″ is a nice for starters. And well packaged records always inspire, but the music? Well…
Some of the songs are downright great. Some slightly oddball, San Diego influenced music is where their strength lies, whilst their weakness is within the strangely annoying new-wavey tunes that they sprinkle liberally across the record.
It takes some time to get going with an odd intro, then once they do break into their first proper tune (“Like A Spider”), things are looking good. This is quirky hardcore all of a Harriet the Spy / Antioch Arrow / Nation of Ulysses / many bands I haven’t heard type bent. Desperate flailing vocals over grooving bass and edgey guitars, plus a bit of synths help the tune to get your foot tapping. Then it finishes. That was quick. But it sets the table for their best songs, the ones which tend to follow this style. They do some neat instrumentals within it too, and “R U Makin’ Friends” is just brilliant. Totally danceable and rockin’, and woah, that chorus, it sorta sounds like a school playground taunt in a way! If only the rest of the album was up to this calibre. Then there are the tracks you can’t make up your mind on. “Gettin’ Paid, Gettin’ Laid” is just odd. High pitched vocals over a slow electronic drum beat, and it all seems off key. But I almost like it. Umm. And finally there are the songs that just let the side down totally. “Fashion Activism” is downright unlistenable. It sounds like the music that you hear playing behind those guys who paint themselves silver and stand in town pretending to robots. Fuck this shit! I’m skipping this song. I can’t stand to hear it. The whole thing ends with what sounds like a show being ‘busted’ by the ‘cops’, and then they have one of those damn things where they didn’t run out the grooves like normal, and it goes into some freaky loop that’ll mess with your heed.
So, um, a mixed bag of some pretty different music. You’ll probably have this already if you’re the type of person who’s going to like it from start to finish. So this review was irrelevant. Now that makes a change. *cough*