CITIZINE REVIEWS
Mark Prindle Reviews
CDs by The Beakers, Blackouts, Converge,
RF7, Shai Hulud, The Insaints, Hard Skin, and The Exploited.

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Converge
You Fail Me
(Epitaph, 2004)

Converge is not a feel-good hit of the summer. They are a great metalcore screamo (?) band with several classic albums under their belt (Petitioning The Empty Sky, Jane Doe, Caring And Killing, When Forever Comes Crashing), but their discography is noticably lacking in party-hearty beach anthems. Throat-ripping screams? Check. Smashing your face in with an iron boot? Czech. Brute Bostonian force and quieter death ruminations of Hell? Chech. What’s even neater too about this new release is that it’s half packed with actual HIGH-SPEED hardcore monsters in and surrounding the usual collection of sickening, musically challenging, oddly time-signatured, cool-as-SHIT expressions of decay, heartache, failure and oppression -- Converge’s very forte! Listen to those bendy vomit notes in “Death King” and bask in the inverted stomach-churning “blues” of “In Her Blood”!

RF7
Addictions & Heartache
(Puke N Vomit)

This band is STILL around!? They’ve been releasing great high-speed post-Ramones anger-chord punk rock since the early ‘80s or something? I don’t even know how many albums they HAVE at this point! I have like six of them and I know there are several more. At any rate, you NEED some RF7 in your collection. The singer says everything in one note, but in a very INTENSE, IMPASSIONED note, often multi-tracked just for you. The tempos never slow down, the catchiness never fades -- this is precisely what the Ramones should have sounded like for their entire career, while not at all being a Ramones ripoff or tribute band.

Sample song titles: “A Desperate Man’s Jesus,” “Where Have All The Quaaludes Gone,” “Lazy America.” If you’re a fan of good old speedy American punk rock, buy every RF7 album you can find. Even their weaker songs are picture-perfect examples of stripped-down classic uptempo punk rock music. Plus there’s an interesting story to follow in the lyrics! At some point during the ‘90s, if his lyrics can be trusted, the singer guy accepted Christ as his savior and tried to stop his junkie lifestyle. But if these NEW lyrics are any indication, he’s still into God but is having a really hard time staying away from booze, pot and anything else he can find. So check that out. And pray that the guy doesn’t drug himself into oblivion because he’s good at this punker thing!

The Beakers
Four Steps Toward A Cultural Revolution
(K, 2004)

Do you ever get all mad and start yelling, “PERE UBU SUCKED AFTER THEIR FIRST ALBUM!!!”? Well, if you’re like me, you generally don’t think far enough in advance to yell things, but the Beakers heard your prayer in 1980 and recorded an art-bashing funk wave album that sounds EXACTLY like early Pere Ubu, right down to the exact same scratchy guitar tone and quivery fat man voice! If that’s not all, you’ll also enjoy the James Chance-style anarchic sax wailings of Jim Anderson, singer and saxophonist.

If you think a band that steals their entire schtick from Pere Ubu and the New York No Wave Scene can’t possibly be good, you’d be dead wrong! The Beakers flirt with disaster, but find success through winning dub bass lines and an excellent crisp drum sound reminiscent of early Fall. And that’s not the ONLY connection to The Fall -- apparently the guitarist for the Beakers is none other than Mark E. Smith!!! However, I bet you a dollar it’s not the REAL Mark E. Smith, but just some charlatan trying to cash in on The Fall’s worldwide success and trick you into thinking MES was ever lucid enough to play an actual instrument. At any rate, this band broke up in 1981. Yay to K for re-digging up their work for modern-day issuance!

Blackouts
History In Reverse
(K, 2004)

In their ongoing project to dig up old Seattle bands that sounded like other, more successful bands, K Records has reissued an old, early ‘80s sack of tunes by the Blackouts (or “Joy Division With A Saxophone”). Their cold wave, atmospheric badtime riffs will drive you to suicide and back, especially the memorable bass lines, churning drum attacks and Joy Division imitation. They were GOOD though! And the singer guy didn’t sound like Joy Divison so much; too pussy to sing low and commit self-murder like Ian Curtis, he instead wigged out all over town with falsettos, herk-jerks, flapjacks and hot doggery all his own. But musically, this dark angry bitter bass-heavy doom-laden drone-rock is totally Unknown Pleasures or Substance or whatever album you like by those jerks. If you think you know Seattle like the back of your hand, you’re WRONG buddy! I don’t see Mark Arm playing in THIS band!!! I don’t see Kurt Cobain’s headless gore-drenched torso singing in THIS band!!! I don’t see Layne Staley’s bloated corpse rotting in THIS band!!

(4 weeks later): What the hell? No wonder the damn rhythm section is so good-- it’s Paul Barker and William Rieflin! Soon to be from Ministry! Christ, I really need to look these bands up before running my bigass mouth about them.

Shai Hulud
A Comprehensive Retrospective Or: How We Learned To Stop Worrying And Release Bad And Useless Recordings
(Revelation, 2005)

If you love getting screamed at by a modern “hardcore” band that plays mid-tempo emo-metal, you’ll love Shai Hulud. And if you love Shai Hulud, you’ll REALLY love this collection of early demos, guitar tracks, warehouse recordings, live sessions and 4-track recordings. And if you really love this collection of early demos, guitar tracks, warehouse recordings, live sessions and 4-track recordings, you’ll really REALLY love sending me $100 for a picture of me taking a shower!

Come on, what am I supposed to say about an album that presents ITSELF as “bad” and “useless”? Uhh... good work, guys! You’ve completely succeeded at reaching your lofty goal!

The Insaints
Sins Of Saints
(Disaster, 2004)

The Insaints were a band of by-the-numbers rock/punk musicians and singers, but MAN THE SEX!!! MY GOD, BOOBS GALORE!!! Led by SEX WORKER and SEX ARTIST of SEX Marian Anderson, the woman with the longest neck in the Universe, the Insaints would wow San Francisco elite wide and far in the early ‘90s with their onstage SEX ACTS , NUDITY, URINATION, FIST-FORNICATING, DOMINATRICES and SEXXX!!!! MY GOD, THE SEX!!! In this CD booklet alone, you’ll find photographic representations of nearly ELEVEN bare female breasts! JESUS CHRIST!!! There’s even a BARE TREASURE CHEST on the disc itself!!! Even the song titles are EROTICALLY charged!! “Whore”! “Oooooh!” “Deadly Kiss”! “Good Girl, Bad Girl”!!! “Last Fast Ride” (on a penis)!!!! “Giant” (penis)!!! “1969” (69!!!)!!!! It would be even better if she could sing or the band wrote any good songs, but man, the TITS!

Hard Skin
Same Meat Different Gravy
(TKO, 2005)

You know what? I love this album. There’s not a creative chord sequence to be found, and every vocal is just a solo or group shout, but what a FUN skinhead record! Handclaps, anthemic bubblegum pop hooks galore, and some of the most hilarious lyrics I’ve ever heard in this kind of music. See, Hard Skin is by all accounts VERY VERY serious about the whole ‘skinhead punk’ movement tradition thingy, and are apparently quite intent on beating the shit out of anybody who doesn’t live to drink down the pub, shag birds, and beat up non-skinheads. But they’re also witty as hell! Here, let me share some lyrics with you:

“Millwall Mark was a skinhead lad / It was the best years he ever had / And now he’s dressed like a Nancy Boy / Fuck off”
“48 cans on the rider every night / Neckin’ every one of them -- feeling alright / Puking down me front again -- future ain’t bright”
“We get loaded every night / And all you cunts are soft as shite”
“See a fucking skinhead / In the fucking shop / Tell him by his boots / Tell him by his crop / See a fucking lady / In the fucking nude / Tell her by her tits / Tell her by her pubes”
“Find a fuckin’ student and steal their booze / Kick their fucking teeth in and shit in their shoes / Oh ./ Thank you. / Wanker”
“You work like a pig / To earn your keep / I’m on the dole / Get paid to sleep”
“Loud proud and skinhead / We’re still true / Power passion aggression / Fuck you”
“You work a shit job, that needs to be said / You walk the street with a tit on your head.... Copper Copper Copper -- Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!”

See? I LOVE this fucking band of three guys that would bash my skull in as soon as they look at me!

(Post-script): Hey, I just looked this band up on the Internet and apparently they’re a JOKE band! They aren’t going to kick my ass at all, the pricks! Screw you, you funnymen with your catchy album!

The Exploited
Horror Epics
(SOS)

Yes, The Exploited are back and still relevant after all these mohawks! NO, I’m joshing. This is actually a re-release of the hardcore legends’ fourth album, originally issued in 1985. I’ve been an Exploited fan for quite some time, myself. I own all their albums -- Punks Not Dead, Troops Of Tomorrow, Let’s Start A War Said Maggie One Day, Death Before Dishonour, The Massacre, Beat The Bastards, Fuck The System and several unnecessary live releases -- and pretty much love all of them for what they are. And what they are? Punk, hardcore punk and metallic thrash, topped with the violent sociopolitical profanities and thick British accent of Wattie Buchan. Horror Epics is mostly high-speed hardcore punk (with some mid-tempo punk-metal tunes to diversify the mix) and, although stymied a bit by cornily over-reverbed (yet TOO QUIET IN THE MIX!) mid-’80s drums, there are enough high-speed headbangers and great singalongs (“They Treat You Like Shit!”; “Ihateyou! Ihateyou! Ihateyou! I hate -- I hate you!”; “Death and destruction -- and Don’t Forget The Chaos!”) to keep any young teen punker guy occupied for days on end.

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