Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire

I like this band a whole lot. Sometimes they played like a dreamy drug trip of marijuana leaves, and and sometimes they crushed you with blocks of distortion. On The Perfect Prescription, there were many slow, druggy moments with awesome sissy guitar tone and amateurish blues scale climbing ("Ode To Street Hassle," "Call The Doctor," you know what I'm saying), in addition to ballsy rockers ("Things Will Never Be The Same," "Take Me To The Other Side," "Dope Nose.") They took you on a magical journey through the highs and lows of a psychedelic drug trip party fiesta.

Thing was, see, that shit like "Walkin' With Jesus" and "Come Down Easy" were the poppiest flippin' things the Spacemen Threes ever pulled out of their (FUCKING GODLY) asses! Even the nine minute Red Krayola cover is catchier than Gilbert Gottfried's guest appearance on Muppets Tonight.

Playing With Fire, on the other hand, is a completely different story. See, Prescription presented the perfect balance between Jason Pierce's dreams of holy negro gospel, and Sonic Boom's dreams for a noisy, psychedelicious future. Here, that balance is being disturbed greatly! The noisy moments ("Revolution," "Suicide") are REALLY NOISY and REALLY LONG (well, "Revolution" is only five or six minutes, but that's fairly epic in today's world of Short Music For Short People featuring NOFX, Less Than Jake, Mad Caddies, Lagwagon, and 97 more of your favorite punk rock revolutionaries), and Jason's lordy Jesus jams ("Come Down Softly To My Soul," "Lord Can You Hear Me?," "So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears") are nowhere near as catchy as "Walkin' With Jesus." And that's to say nothing of Sonic Boom's not-very-noisy-but-still-really-minimal-and-droney quiet numbers.

The dudes were really starting to separate at this point, so you get all of your favorite aspects of Spacemen 3 taken to their absolute extremes. You might think that this is the most balanced Spacemen 3 album because of that, but you're obviously wrong. Here, you can clearly see where each guy is coming from musically, whereas on the one before this one, they're really working together to bring the psychedelic good times. So that one was more song-based, whereas this one is a more minimal, dronier affair. I guess. It's still pretty good, but at heart, I'm a song guy. As much as I enjoy "How Does It Feel?" and "I Believe It," they really don't do it for me the way "Transparent Radiation" and "Walkin' With Jesus" do. It's like why I prefer Goat to Liar; the latter may be the best representation of what the Jesus Lizard was all about, but the former is simply the best set of songs they ever managed to put together. Same goes for The Perfect Prescription and Playing With The Arcade Fire. In that order, too.

Rating: Do like noise, doom metal, microhouse, and krautrock? If you answered "yes" to the question, then you've probably already heard this album! So suck me off. Do you like indie rock and post-punk and 60s summer of love psychedelic boner jams? Then get Perfect Prescription immediately. Maybe hold off on this one. If you're into the dronier side of music, then you need Playing With Fire in your collection. If you're not quite there yet, then get the other one. Great band!

Song: "Revolution"... it's a shit!

Flipper - Generic

Let me tell you about this band Flipper. They were around in the 80s along with Hanoi Rocks and "Teen Wolf." They had a big 'ol bass-o distorto! They also had awesome, loud drums. Then the guitarist just kind of made noise. Also, there was a singer sometimes, and he yelled shit. The result was outstanding.

Along with Fall Out Boy's Hex Enduction Hour, this is definitely the greatest "on the verge of completely falling apart at any second" album ever. This is some cacophonous shit! Let me tell you, though, this is just the most life affirming shit ever. The lyrics on this album... this shit just tears me up. "I TOO HAVE SUNG DEATH'S PRAISES. BUT I'M NOT GONNA SING THAT SONG ANYMORE BECAUSE I HAVE FOUND OUT WHAT LIVING IS ALL ABOUT, IT'S LIFE! LIFE! LIFE IS THE ONLY THING WORTH LIVING FOR!" These fellas showed the world how they felt by being as noisy as possible, and it's just so fucking beautiful. Seriously, it might sound like a bunch of god-awful, chaotic instrument assaulting poop, but it's just so much more than that! This is some fucking powerful stuff. Wow.

"SHED NO TEARS FOR THE COP BLEEDING! HE ONCE HELD THE GUN! HE ONCE HELD THE KEY! NOW HIS PRISONERS WILL SING AND DANCE AND PLAY! NO TEARS WASTED, NO SORROW, NO PITY! NO! NO CRYING NO LOSS!"

Fuck. The singer really isn't singing in rhythm with the music at all, and he's barely singing in the way that one might define the act of "singing." But he's doing it because he cares. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fun House and the Jesus Lizard fucking rule my dicks off, but they are just kickassingly abrasive in every way imaginable. This is a whole other sort of beast. Flipper was so real. The kids don't appreciate music like this. If they had been there, they would have understood.

Rating: Ridiculously high.

Song: "Life"

XTC - Skylarking


XTC, which is pronounced the same way as the popular drug, heroin. Were a bunch of drugged out british guys who wanted to record a very good album! and they succeeded! hurray! Everyone climb on top of my penis and gorge yourself on it!

You will have to excuse myself for my absence in the web reviewing scene, I have been busy fucking Jennifer Aniston.

Anyway, this album is full of uh, Orch pop I guess? The guy who sings it sounds like your gay art teacher from middle school but after eating four white castle sliders, and trying to poop them out at gunpoint. I like the vocals very much.

Most of the songs on this album are talking about eating members of The Smiths, I just took some pills and am having dificulty concentrating on the music. The second track is about smoking grass, I don't know what else to say about this album. The guitars are visceral! Actually, there are barely any guitars on this album. It's basically Sufjan Stevens if he was in a prog rock band. This album has more in common with Rush or King Crimson than it does The Beatles. The rest of the songs on here talk about killing Tony Danza.



I fucking hate Tony Danza.


Rating: 10/10, recommended for the entire family, or at least the gay ones, basically no straight person could like this album which is why i had to cut my penis off in order to review it. One of the gayest albums of the 21st century.

Song: XTC - Grass