Probably best known either as the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist that didn't die, or the one that disappeared mid tour and didn't surface again for months, Frusciante also makes records by himself, and has a pretty healthy collection of songs that have managed to go mostly unnoticed. While this is not the best of his three records, it's still pretty cool. Lo fi home recorded simple pop songs, with drum machines and gravelly heartfelt vocals. His first two records were full of keening, barely in tune vocals, and erratic instrumentation and seemed kind of unfinished, which was part of their charm. This record seems more mature, a little more assured, and definitely more 'commercial'. Which may not be such a good thing, but it's not such a bad thing either.
Another amazing batch of dreamy psych-folk unearthed from the dregs of obscurity by the Sunbeam label, this lone album by Mark Fry from 1972, recorded while still a teenager, has it all. Songs about witches, a girl named Alice, lutes and flutes and mandolins, sitars, a song that unravels each verse between other songs, and even a song played entirely backwards. With a soft voice similar to Roger Rodier, whose lone album was also reissued on Sunbeam (which we also raved about!), we had only heard of Mark Fry previously through his contribution (a sadly truncated three minute version of the eight minute long "Mandolin Man") to the British edition of the Love Peace and Poetry psych compilation. Recorded in Rome and only limitedly released in Italy, it soon faded into the ether, and Fry turned to his other love, painting, in which he has had a more successful career. This reissue features two additional bonus tracks from 1975, and boasts liner notes from Fry himself telling the fascinating story of the making of this album, and beyond. Thanks Sunbeam for making this amazing album available to us again! Absolutely Recommended!!
"Fuckin' feel good party metal. Smoking pot and surfing and skating and hanging out in the parking lot of the local 7-11, drinking beer, scamming on chicks, no future: just our friends, babes, and ALL SUMMER LONG!!! 'California Crossing' is right. This is the
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As rock heroes, Fu Manchu are hopelessly overrated, but these high-concept stoners still provide some decent summertime fun if you can get past the weak vocals. This disc is enhanced with some cd-rom videos and stuff, but unfortunately is not enhanced by their uninspired Devo cover. Buy it if you must, but also be sure to visit our new "Classic Rock" section and pick up a copy of of Nazareth's "Hair Of The Dog" or AC/DC's "For Those About To Rock". Then you'll be all right, yeah.
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Local favorites release another album of quirky, deconstructed indie rock filled with emotion. The die cut cd cover is sooooo cool.
Local introspective indierockers Fuck have always been about ghostly songs -- by ghostly I mean filled with melodies that are barely (rather than over-) stated, melodies for which you fill in the odd note here and there that you know is *supposed* to be there but which isn't stated. The band isn't concerned with knocking you over the head with its technical and melodic prowess (though it easily could), Fuck just doesn't feel like being obvious. And therein lies their genius. "Cupid's Cactus" is fifteen songs of hushed gestures, gorgeous guitar, doped out vocals, and expressive silences. It's not as good as their "Baby Loves a Funny Bunny" (now out of print), but it's pretty great anyway. Fans of Calexico will enjoy it.
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Newest Matador signing and local AQ-favorites release another excellent two songs.
24 glorious tracks from SF's favorite hushed indie rock combo, who've recorded for Matador and Smells Like. Their magic is heavily evident here, on this album of rarities, singles tracks and live stuff. Fuck are restrained yet shambolic and melodic yet
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With the lovely packaging you've come to expect from San Francisco's Fuck, their first cd is a pleasure to hear. 9 songs, including 2 of the best from their pair of self-released singles.
SF's Fuck have returned with their long-awaited new full length. Actually Italy got an advance peek at these 'Bongos as it was previously released last year on the Italian label Homesleep. Fortunately Future Farmer have kindly scooped it up for domestic release. Our introductory spin was a rather befuddling one (of course Fuck are well-known for being a puzzlin' eccentric combo, but this seems even more so that usual). We're not quite sure yet what to think of the album title nor the first song "Motherfuckeroos" nor the next song's lyrics about a hairy chest. After all of that weirdness things settle into a slightly more stable but still characteristically quirky and meandering folksy path. At times, quite akin to the more barebones moments of Badly Drawn Boy.
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I'm embarrassed to say it took a few months for me to realize the brilliance of this album, but better late blah blah blah... This is stark and understated pop, nothing sweet about it, quiet and intense. Unpredictable in the best ways, like a song will be building up up up to a soft climax, only to have the bass stop at crucial moment -- it's that kind of beauty. Definitely for fans of Palace and early Pavement, I cannot recommend them, one of SF's best local bands, more highly. Packaged in a (pre-June of 44) matchbook cover with nice Fuck sticker.
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Get cozy with your biggest most noise-canceling headphones, meticulously cover all windows so that no natural light infiltrates your room, and prepare yourself to be immersed in the overwhelming dystopic soundscape that is the third Fuck Buttons record. It's another unexpected left turn for these Bristol lads, this time into the realms of menacing antihuman electronica. Slow Focus is first and foremost massively hypnotic. More than half the songs surpass the seven minute mark (a couple passing ten), so the tracks are given ample time to really lure you in. There is an unnerving wooziness to much of the record, an almost nauseous sense of vertigo running throughout, like being plugged into some sort of drug pumping super computer or standing on the edge of a very tall building, gazing at the neon lights below. There are massive beats - tribal drums smashing against sci-fi synths, almost like a less sparse S U R V I V E soundtracking a film like Event Horizon (or some other comparable techno-horror epic!). It's a bit like listening to Daft Punk possessed by the devil - sinister and throbbing, but still gets the blood pumping. It's electronic music with serious grit, conjuring images of great shapeless space creatures drifting through a lightless void or immense black stone monoliths rising from the sea. You may hear the chiming of haunting bells colliding with decayed static transmissions from a distant dead star, the throbbing of John Carpenter-esque synths over scattershot drum patters, or what sounds like a cyborg choir accompanied by a chorus of sheet metal being sheered to pieces by velociraptor talons. Elsewhere, a drunken hip-hop beat lurches sweaty and anxious over the decay of buzzing synth drones causing the entire world to move in slow motion. The only reprieve from the menace comes from 10 minute closer "Hidden XS" which is legitimately melodically epic and moving, but all the while maintaining that Blade Runner future noir atmosphere. It's hard to describe this record without getting hyperbolic (clearly!), but that's just because it's so BIG. Simply describing the music doesn't seem to really do it justice. It is much more than the sum of its parts - an album that demands to be experienced. And undoubtedly one of the most cinematic and immersive records of the year.
Fuck Buttons? Please just ignore the name for a moment. We're glad WE did, and actually gave this band a listen... 'cause, fuck if they don't push our buttons. The pleasure ones, big fat buttons labeled massive super distorted heavy electronic drone fuzz pop damage. Really we were surprised, though maybe the colorful cover artwork that kinda makes this look like a Black Dice record should have been an indication that this Bristol UK duo was gonna be cool, despite their name. They're energetically exotic and hypnotically repetitive and just chock full of sheer noise fuzz bliss, bulldozering over buried melodies, tribal weirdness, and equally distorted screaming vocals, though this is mostly an instrumental, rhythmic throb. These six fairly lengthy songs wrap the listener's ears in a multihued steel wool blanket of abrasive warmth, made from such shimmering sonic elements as ambient piano, motorik machine beats, and thick spaced out synth. And just when you think it's already pretty darn fuzzed out, they flip a switch or step on a pedal or something and then the REAL fuzz kicks in.
Definitely for fans of Growing at their most SUNNO)))-y. Also we might say this sounds like Vulture Club doing the vacuuming over at Gang Gang Dance's house, playing Jesu and M83 albums real loud while they do so. A beautiful blend of noise and drone and bright shining eternal pop loveliness...
The very first track, "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" might be our favorite though we're crushed out on the whole album. But this song really sums it up, it IS the album the way the first song on the Mammal's Lonesome Drifter WAS that Mammal album too. This track has got the pretty, ringing piano part to start with, gloriously building up into the choppy fuzzed out throb we soon learn is Fuck Button's modus operandi. Damn this is good -- and there's even vocals amidst this heavenly buzz that sound like they could come off some cvlt black metal album.
So yeah Fuck Buttons, cool band, dunno about the name. Seems like Fuck is the new Super or Jesus or Black, as bandnaming trends go. There's been The Fucking Champs, Fuck I'm Dead, and of course, Fuck. But more recently, bands named Fucked Up, Holy Fuck, and now Fuck Buttons have made the scene... always hilarious when they get popular enough to be played on the radio or mentioned in the mainstream press. Not so hilarious when spam filters prevent AQ list subscribers from getting emails with our reviews. But whatever, we swear a lot ourselves anyway, sorry about that. Anyway, fucking recommended.
The first Fuck Buttons record, Street Horrrsing, was a bright colorful explosion of sound, we described it as "massive super distorted heavy electronic drone fuzz pop" and "energetically exotic and hypnotically repetitive and just chock full of sheer noise fuzz bliss, bulldozering over buried melodies, tribal weirdness, and equally distorted screaming vocals". Basically it was a noisy fucked up head spinning chunk of noise rock bliss pop infused with all manner of electronics.
On Tarot Sport, the equation has been flipped, if anything this is an electronic record, heck, a techno record, that just so happens to be filtered through some twisted noise rock, lo-fi punk rock lens. Like Daft Punk for the noise rock set, these extended jams sound like some unholy collision between the Boredoms, Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice and the Basement Jaxx, the synths are throbbing and thick and buzzy, the beats bounce and pound and skitter and slip from lurching stutter to house-y pound to groovy lope, while all around these various sounds is wrapped a warm gauzy layer of M83 like fuzz, giving the whole record a super dreamlike almost eighties feel. "Space Mountain" sounds like M83 gone techno and then nabbed for a crucial scene in a remake of Sixteen Candles, "Flight Of The Feathered Serpent" is another one that has futuristic eighties jam written all over it, hazy and druggy, washed out and shimmery, the beats big and block rockin', with a gorgeously almost Jesu sounding second half, albeit way poppier.
The first half of the record though, starting with the single "Surf Solar" is more on the Daft Punk side of things, still fuzzy and noisy and blissed out but way more techno. "Rough Steez" might be the weirdest of the bunch, with its super buzzy jagged fuzz bass, stuttery clipped rhythms, and squealing glitchy electronics, although there's plenty of fuzzy dreaminess creeping in already.
This is one of those rare records that pretty much everybody here loves, it's groovy, noisy, fuzzy, druggy, the beats are bad ass, the atmosphere is hazy and eighties, and it's all wrapped up into one practically perfect set of future summer retro noise rock techno electronic jams. This is quickly turning into one of our new favorites...
This is the band that we all just assumed would be our all time favorite, simply based on the fact that they're called FUCK... I'M DEAD. Is that not the best band name ever? Don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question. And anyway, the answer is YES, it is the
Who would have thought Fucked Up would turn out to be the IT band. They're basically a punk rock band. A killer punk rock band, but it still seemed a bit surprising that they blew up the way they did. For some of the reasons behind that, check out the review of Fucked Up's The Chemistry Of Common Life elsewhere on the aQ site, penned by aQ pal Forrest, for an in depth analysis of just what it is about Fucked Up that has everyone in a tizzy.
Before their debut album though, the band had released a whole mess of 7"s, all of them pretty bad ass. Fucked Up worked it like it was still the nineties, fuck MySpace, and downloads and all that shit, they were a 7" machine, pounding out winner after winner, understanding the magic of 7"s, a super inexpensive way for kids to hear your music, and thus, why wouldn't you put your best songs on those singles, well Fucked Up would and did.
Their move to Matador did nothing to stem the tide of Fucked Up 7"s, and this TWO DISC compilation collects a bunch of singles, from their debut in 2002 all the way up to now, they don't seem to be arranged in chronological order, and we've read a bunch about how Couple Tracks doesn't flow like an album and is stylistically all over the map, but fuck it, it's a SINGLES COMPILATION, it's not supposed to play like an album, it's more like a bad ass mixtape, with all songs by the same band. And bad ass this collection is, once again demonstrating that Fucked Up have a way of infusing seriously aggro punk rock, with some incredible pop hooks, and vice versa, taking what basically sounds like a heavy pop song, and adding loads of guitars and vocalist Pink Eyes' wailing bellow.
We could go through the record song by song, but by now you should know what Fucked Up sound like, if not, listen to the tracks below, needless to say, these guys rule, and this is heavy, hooky, catchy, aggressive, headbangable certainly if you're so inclined, definitely moshable too, but even if you're just sitting there with a pair of headphones strapped on, these sounds work that way too.
Includes photos of all the various singles sleeves, as well as some super funny, and super snarky notes on each song...
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Full length number three from everybody's favorite progressive punx, and this Canadian sextet continues to polish and hone their ever unpunkening sound, with the band apparently openly fessing up to no longer being a punk band. Which really what was so special about these guys in the first place. Back in the early days, when they most definitely WERE a punk band, they seemed to have sonic aspirations beyond punk rock, and the fact that Fucked Up was populated by a bunch of well listened music nerds, most definitely informed their sound, a sound which as it stands now, is as much indie rock as punk rock if not more.
Just check out the opening of "Let Her Rest", sure it's an intro, but it's a dreamily jangly one, super melodic, a gauzy bit of distorted buzz over a sweetly tinkling guitar, and even when the second track kicks in, it's hardly punk, kinetic, caffeinated, super hooky jangle pop, which as far as we're concerned. The punkest part at this point is frontman Damian Abraham's raspy bellow (which is sometimes distracting as he's a dead ringer for the singer from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, or maybe John Brannon of Negative Approach / Laughing Hyenas is a cooler comparison, or the dude from Scissorfight), but even those vocals have grown progressively more melodic, and the fact that there are some sweet female vox (via the woman from Cults reviewed elsewhere on this week's list) to balance them a bit, only presses the non punk point further home.
The multiple vocals are also part of the concept, as this is a rock opera of sorts, about a worker in a lightbulb factory, but unlike many 'rock operas' it definitely plays just fine removed from the concept as just a kick ass heavy indie pop record. Guitars crunch, drums pound, melodies soar, the sound as polished as ever, it's obvious these guys camped out in the studio and made that extra time count, there are hooks galore, the songs crazy catchy, those gruff vox keeping it from being pure pop, but just barely, a kick ass melding of modern indie rock, eighties post punk and Britpop into something that is most definitely Fucked Up.
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AQ pal Forrest has been championing Fucked Up literally for years now, and as we mentioned in the review of the Year Of The Pig review, we just weren't feeling it before, But Forrest hassled and hassled and finally we began to see the light. So when this new record finally dropped, we figure who better to gush and swoon than the person who got us to like the band in the first place. Take it away Forrest...
Fucked Up are not worried about orthodoxy or the retro purism that seems to periodically seize up the gears of the perpetually self-consuming punk revival. Based on their interviews, which are farragoes of obvious bullshit interwoven with a fair amount of surprisingly candid insight into their working methods, it's pretty apparent that Fucked Up is in a lot of ways better considered an art project than a band. They take not giving a shit
very seriously.
On the one hand, there's vocalist Pink Eyes's love of old-school Situationist shock tactics, which sits uneasily with his autodidact's preoccupation with esoterica and metaphysics, leading to lyrics that come across as Iggy Pop acting as Charles Baudelaire's puppet. On Fucked Up's debut album, Hidden World, the lyrical themes were as various as Henry Darger's phantasmagoric fantasy world of the Vivian Girls (look it up; no one-sentence summary can do it justice) and Blakean transfiguration; on Chemistry of the Common World the mixture is a little less indigestibly rarefied and maybe a little more quotidian, but not by much. It's still not really punk as we've come to know it, despite all of Pink Eyes's John Brannon-esque choked growling. It's still all over the place.
On the other, there's guitarist 10,000 Marbles's production and guitar work, an incredibly dense wall of overdubbed guitar, Pink Eyes's yowling, pounding drums, relatively straightforward bass playing, harmonized guest vocals (contributed, in an oddly recursive turn of events, by all-female Brooklyn chainsaw pop group Vivian Girls), flute, organ, bongos, whispered chants, horn drones, cheap analog synthesizers... you name it, it's in the mix somewhere. It's hard to say whether the songwriting is a product of influence or pastiche: "Royal Swan" owes a heavy, heavy debt to Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" (they're even in the same key), "No Epiphany" pilfers both its melody and its sound from the Dandy Warhols, "Twice Born" comes across as a particularly easygoing Blood Brothers song, and "Black Albino Bones" is a hardcore take on Ride-style muscular shoegazer; "Lost of Days",
with its malevolent punkabilly riff stolen from East Bay Ray and then improbably fused with avant-garde horn drones (contributed by 10,000 Marbles's high school band teacher) is a self-contained masterpiece that reminds me of nothing so much as the recent Asbestoscape album, although in all likelihood Fucked Up got there first.
Fucked Up's sound is deceptive; their fondness for bright, major-key riffs laid over apocalyptically loud minor-key harmonic beds, slathered in truckloads of effects, obscures the underlying sinewy grace of the relatively complex songwriting, and the relentlessness of the sonic attack (this is some thick music) conceals the fact that the sound shares more in common with the post-Glenn Branca multi-tracked noise-guitar drone of bands like Helmet, Sonic Youth or (most closely, to these ears) Band of Susans than it does with, say Negative Approach or Black Flag, to whom Fucked Up are more frequently compared.
Like Hidden World, The Chemistry of Common Life is a coherent, carefully sequenced album with a beginning and ending that mirror each other. I've tried to not give away too many of its secrets - it's a complex, rewarding listen that is more than the sum of its parts, and it deserves a wide audience. People expecting an ordinary hardcore record are likely to be surprised. Very little about Fucked Up, and The Chemistry of Common Life, is ordinary. It may not be beautiful in a traditional sense, but it is very powerful, and at times - in the literal, oldest sense of the words - awesome and magical.
Includes bonus 7" flexi and download
Fourth (?) in Fucked Up's ongoing series of Chinese Zodiac eps, this one featuring two loooooong songs, which find the punk band that even non punks seem to love, moving even further from their punk rock roots on these two extended, repetitive hypno-kraut post rock jams. And while folks were crowing about this being FU's 'krautrock' record, it's not quite that, although it is pretty rocking and repetitive, the title track notable also for some guest vocals from Mod Goth chanteuse Zola Jesus, but more on that in a second.
"Year Of The Ox" finds the band locking into a pretty serious chunk of hypnotic rock, after a gorgeous cello intro, the drums and riffs locked tight, with the howled vocals following right along, for almost six minutes straight, with only brief variances, until about 7 minutes in, when the strings return, and the song turns into some weirdly lush indie pop, dramatic and melodic, and then finally the song switches gears completely into a heavy swirling bit of psychedelic drift, with big guitars and swirls of cymbal sizzle, lots of soaring strings, all pretty epic and majestic. When the track finally resumes its rocking, Zola Jesus swoops in her deep dramatic vox the perfect foil for Pink Eyes' gruff howl, the two sparring over a frenetic crunch before fading out and leaving just the strings again.
The flipside, "Solomon's Song" is equally kick ass and not all that punk (and not a bad thing), beginning with just horns, then some dark crunchy riffage, before the band launch into another propulsive groove, droney, and hypnotic, and again sort of post rocky, the verses super tense and tight, but with some cool mathy breakdowns and some serious poppiness, the gruff vocals sounding more melodic by the second, not to mention a killer minimal second half, that's a stripped down stretch of drums and bass, distant horns, and some spidery bits of guitars, gradually unfurling and winding down until just the horns are left. Now we can't wait for the next 8 eps (year of the tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster and dog!)!!
The fifth in Fucked Up's ongoing series of Chinese Zodiac themed singles, this one obviously the Year Of The Tiger, and finds these punk rockers moving even further away from their punk rock roots, the only real punk thing about them is the members's handles, and vocalist Pink Eyes' howled bellow, otherwise the music continues to get more and more melodic, still heavy sure, but more sort of epic and jangly, this the A side of this one even has piano on it (courtesy of Austra) as well as guest vocals from director Jim Jarmusch (!) and someone called Annie-Claude Deschenes, and it's a good one, big bombastic, stadium indie rock, with soaring choruses, big jangly guitars, crunchy riffs, pounding drumming, and those vocals. The real surprise is the B side, which at 22 minutes long is apparently merely an excerpt of an even longer piece, and is a tripped out sidelong sprawl of experimental psychedelic Fucked Up-ness, starting with a symphony of backwards swoops, and blossoming into a blurred druggy wall of sound, that sounds a bit like multiple Fucked Up songs playing simultaneously, dizzying and carnivalesque in places, noisy and chaotic in others, the whole thing rife with cool backwards effects, which gives it a definite Teenage Filmstars vibe, and makes this out favorite Fucked Up jam in a while!
Includes a printed lyric sheet / insert and apparently, in the spirit of the theme, $1 from the sale of each record will go to the Save Tigers Now Foundation too.
We always wanted to like Fucked up. C'mon, their called Fucked up! Plus the band members have names like Pink Eyes, 10,000 Marbles, and Mustard Gas. But when we got down to listening to them, they just sounded like regular old punk rock. Definitely cool, but nothing enough to warrant all that hype. If we wanted punk rock, we'd take Pissed Jeans before Fucked Up (both bands that were reviewed in the NY Times, with neither name deemed fit for publication, and thus each band got written up without their band names EVER being mentioned!), the vocalist too, had a definitely sort of Scissorfight howl that put us off a bit, but that all changed when we heard "Year Of The Pig". A nearly twenty minute piano laced jam, that features angelic female vocals, that aforementioned howl, simple shuffling drums, the whole thing erupting into some serious almost Killdozer-y noiserock jams, the whole thing surprisingly proggy, with tons of weird dynamics, warbly organ, freaked out drumming, strange arrangements, a long stretch of almost krautrocky garage rock groove, culminating in another noise drenched chaotic psychrock blowout. We're definitely gonna have to revisit their Hidden World full length now.
Formerly vinyl only, "Year Of The Pig", the cd version is packed with extra tracks, b-sides, and alternate edits of "Year Of The Pig", one for each region: US, UK and Japan. The B sides / extra tracks are much more punk rock, sort of how we remember Fucked Up sounding, but we're actually digging it more now. The vocals especially, a bit Lee Ving from Fear, a bit Killdozer, perfectly suited to Fucked Up's ramshackle punk rock frenzy. The edits are cool too, the Japanese one tending toward a more murky blurry blissy sound, the US and the UK leaning heavily on the female vocals, but each ending with a blast and a rrrooooaaar. We may weigh in on the full length eventually, but for even doubters like us, Fucked Up absolutely destroy with "Year Of The Pig".
An unlikely split it might seem, to some ears at least, but as far as we're concerned, tough to go wrong with these two bands, and hell if more splits were based simply on two bands that rule and that we love, well, the world would be a much better place wethink!
Fucked Up give us a short blast of totally epic progressive punk rock, the way only they can do it, beginning with an opening salvo that is about as epic and majestic as it gets, brooding, slow building, total super heavy post rock bliss, before launching into the song proper, the vocals that instantly recognizable bellow, the guitars chiming and chugging, the song rocking and hypnotic, but super dynamic, with plenty of start/stops and a few stretches of blissed out almost krautrock sounding melodic tangle, before launching back into it. If only all punk rock was this weird/cool/good.
Norwegian drug/drone/space rock combo Serena-Maneesh counter with another jam of their twisted druggy psychedelic weirdness, equal parts droned out space rock, indie jangle, brooding dark drones, and totally twisted avant experimentalism, sounding a bit like a mash up, the buzzing heavy guitars, and chaotic drumming, underpinning, mumbled whispery vocals and keening psychedelic leads, the song peppered with shards of white noise and abrupt bursts of crunch and static, sounding almost like someone flipping switches, while the band rock out oblivious, totally heady, druggy, weird as fuck, space drone hypnorock outsider heaviness, that continues to rule. Not sure why more people don't worship at the altar of S-M, but hard for us to imagine anyone listening to this and not being converted. Fucking AMAZING!
Both tracks rule, and make it well worth the sorta steep price...
Mysterious posthumous release of this irrepressible SF speed-punk-metal sect's entire recorded output. Led by the fearless SF scenester Matt Shapiro. Seriously in your (fuck)face. With a splatter of sampled dialogue. Mass unbridled thrashing and nudity abound. Watch the opposition cower in their boots.
Calling this an industrial record certainly does this record no justice... Although Fuckhead's overblown testosterone laden angst is clearly presented through digital technology, thankfully none of the dated Front 242 or Rammstein references appear. Instead dense hyperactive sampling and digital noise processing dominate the album. Certainly an odd choice for digital electronica saboteurs Mego to release, but nonetheless an brutal and beguiling album. Recommended.
A couple years ago there was Trans Champs, now it's The Fucking Am. That's right, it's the second occurance of the unholy union of two bands whose identity you've hopefully figured out already. It's a good thing too, 'cause as you may or may not know, The Fucking Champs are down to just drummer Tim Soete and guitarist Tim Green after guitarist Josh Smith retired from their ranks a while back...and we weren't sure what Tim and Tim were gonna do without Josh in the band anymore. Actually we're still not sure, but at least they are keeping the Champs spirit alive with this project, which (although the Trans Am folks outnumber the Champs members) seems rather more Champsish than Transamy. First Trans Am record maybe. Anyway, Gold is an album of mostly instrumentals, a post-rock/prog/cock-rock concoction that finds the common ground betwixt the two parent bands and that means a lot of Thin Lizzy and a little bit of Kraftwerk/video game music, plus some of the Krautrocky psychedelia of Tim Green's Concentrick project as well... Tracks vary as widely as from the very '70s bar-rock blare of vocal number "Taking Liberties" to the lovely, folky jamming of "Acoustico Gomez" (one of the album-closing "Gomez" trilogy), but things seem rather more purposeful and fully realized than on these guys' initial ep collaboration (maybe 'cause for the Champs duo anyway, this was suddenly not really "just" a side project, but basically their next record?). So fans of either band ought to give this one a try. Hopefully this "group" will continue to work together...if so, next time, will it be The Transfucking Amchamps? Or, how 'bout the Amping Champ Trans Fucks?
The one, the only, the...fucking...Champs! After three years, finally we get their second album (called "IV" on account of the couple of cassette releases that preceded "III"). Ok. Here's the run down, for those who do and who don't know the Champs (and to know them is to love them): they're a trio, they have two guitarists very interested in harmonies, but no bassist, they have song titles like "These Glyphs Are Dusty" and "Thor Is Like Immortal", they play metal but pass it off as indie rock in order to be popular (hey, they're on Fucking Drag City), and they are primarily an instrumental band. Oh, and they have lots of self-imposed problems with their name, always worried about being confused with those "Tequila" oldsters. This time, they're the FUCKING Champs (I prefer: The C'fuckin'hamps myself), but you've probably run across that amazing "III" record by C4AMP5, it's the same band of course. So, how's the new album? Well, it rules. It's a lot shorter than "III" (which was a double LP for goshsakes) at 38 minutes, and pretty much each and every one of those minutes is packed with Thin Lizzy/Maiden/Metallica/Van Halen lovin' genius. There's a lot less of the techno keyboard interludes that they did on "III", this has its gentle moments but none of that Trans Am-ish stuff. (Although it is on current heavy rotation in Windy's 1980 Firebird Trans Am, hey! ) It's also a bit poppier, on the whole. And in another brilliant move the Champs make you wait until the very last song ("Extra Man") to hear vocals. Drummer Tim Soete's vocals and the catchiness of the tune are certainly manifestations of their Thin Lizzy worship, but, being the Champs, even this vocal cut has a lot of instrumental sections, including a lengthy bit in the middle that seems dropped in from a hypothetical black metal math rock record. You'll be playing it over and over again, along with the rest of the disc. The Champs are probably the best (=least boring) post-rock band in the world, 'cause they're in fact a METAL band.
(And let's face it guys, if you're not metal, then you're a novelty act...but if one indie rock kid gets into Thin Lizzy or Carcass 'cause of The Champs, then more power to 'em!) Recommended, if you hadn't guessed! The perfect back-to-school rock soundtrack.
Fuckin' fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuckin' A. These guys rule. Yeah, the name change was stupid, but this, their second album for Drag City as The "Fucking" Champs *does* make you think such basic, expletive-laden, fists in the air, devil-horn sign waving thoughts. Fuck yeah! The Fucking Champs. Indeed. And even if Drag City (as a part of the "joke" presumably) won't let it be known that The Champs play METAL (or maybe it's the band's idea to keep that a 'secret' on their press material, preferring the term "total music"), they are a -for real- metal band. A weird one, and a great one. Now, I do worry for The Champs' sake that their instrumental math-metal virtuosity is enjoyed mainly as a novelty by their legions of ironic indie-rock fans...and if so, how many of these fans are going to be interested in "VI", "VII" and "VIII" when they come out? 'Cause "V", their latest, sees these lads go from strength to strength without significantly altering or diluting their vision. If you already love the Champs, you'll love "V" for sure, it's a lot like "IV" but without the one song with vocals found on that album (c'mon Tim Soete, sing!!). Also there's more fusion and classical moves on here -- one song is listed as copyright 1723 J.S. Bach ("Air On A G-String", which IS Johan's original title, although we were suspicious).
Indeed, within their distinctive sound, variety abounds on "V", from "I Am The Album Cover" which channels the techno-blues rockisms of late-period ZZ Top, to the Frippertronics-ish-isms elsewhere. There's also a bit of electronic tunesmithery that's so much better than anything they did in their collaboration with Trans Am. But that's no big stretch for this band, and for the most part "V" is heavy, rockin' Champs-at-their-best stuff, the trio dealing out rapid, tense riffing, no-denying-it's-metal-lic sheets of sound, and hard hitting drum filigree left right and center. Familiar faves previously only heard live and on old demo cassettes also appear. Melody and math and metal intertwine wonderfully over the fifteen tracks found here, and it's so good it's no joke. No more of a joke than, say, Hammers of Misfortune is (think about it).
That's the deal with the Champs. There's nothing inherently funny about their music (in fact, without vocals/lyrics, they're LESS funny than many of their influences, like Carcass and Metallica). Maybe that's why they like that "total music" tag. 'Cause at the end of the day, they make this music, and you listen to it, for the sake of the music alone, not for some post-hip, ironic, spoof-on-metal hilarity. I mean, a few of the song titles are amusing, but you also know they kind of mean stuff like "Hats Off To Music". No joking here, really. (But we do have to ask Josh Smith about The Guitar That Was Made Of Water that he has listed in his vast equipment array, among other things...)
Anyway, in sum: another winner from one of our all-time favorite bands!!
You can always rely on The Fucking Champs. Even after a several-year recording/touring hiatus, during which time drummer Tim Soete and guitarist Tim Green had to face a major lineup change -- replacing founding member guitarist Josh Smith (now in mod garage trio The Makes Nice) with Trans Am's Phil Manley -- they've come back to follow up 2002's V with the boldly titled VI and it's like they've never been gone. True they kept their hand in with 2004's Fucking Am album. But still, it's nice to have them back and doing what they do best, which is making Fucking Champs music. Phil fills Josh's shoes with aplomb, fitting in with the two Tims like the old friend and excellent musician that he is. So no problem there.
With renewed fire, VI demonstrates that the Champs really have created a sound unique unto themselves. Say what you will about ironic hipster metal irony gimmickry (no vocals, no bass, nerdy humor), the truth is that you know the Champs when you hear 'em. Sure it's easy to spot the influence of their childhood metal heroes (Metallica, Maiden, Lizzy, Carcass...) but what they really sound like is The Fucking Champs. And not too many bands can claim that they sound most like themselves. And that it's such a damn good sound!! Their majestic harmonies ascend to heaven borne on shafts of light, their chunky "dahdahdah" riffs require immediate and incessant headbanging, their sleek melodies always catch the ear, and their mathy arrangements dizzy and dazzle. Whether in the long run they were smart or not to market themselves mainly to the indie-rock crowd rather than the metal underground remains to be seen. Some might argue that they've painted themselves into a corner, but it's a corner we love to visit!!
Leading of with indeed very Champsy "The Loge" (already heard on Kemado's Invaders compilation btw), VI runs the gamut of Champsy treats and tricks. There's uptempo party rockers that are actually gorgeous prog epics in disguise ("A Forgotten Chapter In The History Of Ideas"), a few gently spacey keyboardy interludes ("Insomnia", "The Crystal Behind You"), even some lovely, lush quasi-Zep folkiness ("Dolores Park"). And of course plenty more powerful, Champsy compositions showcasing fretboard acrobatics, precision drum battery and stop on a dime tightness. About the only thing long-time Champs fans (like us) are going to find disappointing about this record is that, well, we were hoping Tim Soete would step out from behind his drum kit and SING at least one song here, we love his voice. But he doesn't. Oh well maybe next time he'll go for it and give us another "Extra Man" or "Summer Knights". Instead, Neil Hamburger's voice appears somewhere on here...
By the way, stay tuned at the end of the cd for the "hidden" track of chopped up studio chatter / repetitive riff collage. Brought a smile to our faces, might have been even funnier if they whould have started the record off with it!!
If we were to describe this band as sounding halfway between The Fucking Champs and The Ocean, you'd probably think were were, uhh, fucking with you. We're not though! It's kind of true. These boys have heavy guitars, brooding angst and fiery aggression to spare, and they're getting some of it out of their system... and into yours! Metallic post punk that will for sure satisfy the throngs of dirty rockers who are into corrosive, spazzy, dynamic angular art rock as well, as this comes complete with boy girl vocals, some new wave fuzz, bits of blown out surf rock, some droney krautrock, all scuffed up, roughed up and wrapped in a dark scuzzy sheen. Cool stuff!
The SF indie label Kimosciotic run by Le Flange Du Mal's Chris Rolls is a hard one to pin down. In the last five years he's offered up the soul'n'hip hop of DJ Unagi, the electro-disco-bizarro of Crack We Are Rock, the atmospheric electronics of Not Breathing and the scuzz murk art rawk of Ezeetiger. One of the few common links we've been able to sleuth out is that many of the artists seem to have a penchant for costumes, disguises and devil-may-care attitude. Now get a load of Fuckwolf, Kimosciotic's latest release. They fit right in! From the looks of the photos in the insert, medical masks, wigs, coveralls, a lemon tree, sunglasses, a reel-to-reel, drums, electric guitar and bass all came into play during the recording of this cd. Some degree of propulsiveness lurks within and seeps out occasionally, but the overall results are a molten sludge filth stew that draws equal influence from the industrial and no-wave music of the '70s and '80s.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hey! Achtung! This lil' item was, along with the first Death Cab For Cutie, "Album of the Month" back in August '99 (list #78) and we've been out of it almost ever since, due to major import distribution snafus. So if you missed it then, hurry up and get it now (we got a bunch but some are spoken for already). Instrumental 'post-rock' from Germany that, in a word, rules. Here is what we said about it last summer, using Don Caballero perhaps unfairly as a comparison:
The relative ease with which this German band outshines the post-rock-fanboy holy-grail trio Don Caballero (keeping in mind that we really like Don Cab), makes one wish that the general indie rock audience at large was harder to please. Then perhaps more bands would try to expand on the Don Cab sound instead of incessantly aping it, and more records would sound as jaw droppingly brilliant as this one. In place of Damon Che's non stop avalanche of 'Moby Dick'isms and DonCab's metal-in-post-rock's-clothing is a complex sonic tapestry of hypnotic drones and cyclical riffs. Fuehler take the droning single note repetition of Tony Conrad, the scraping stones of Loren Chasse, the heavy prog of Voivod, the dynamics of Slint, and the slowly evolving Reich-ish rock of Circle, and fashion a music at once emotive and heavy, intellectual and kick ass.
Three song e.p. from the new Fugazi record 'The Argument'. Featuring three tracks exclusive to the single, including the song 'Furniture', and oldie but a goody that was up until now unreleased. Also features extra drumming from long time Fugazi roadie Jerry Busher.
The soundtrack to the 10 years in the making Fugazi documentary! Demos, etc.
