mission of burma - the obliterati

Bands aren't supposed to do things like Mission of Burma does them. Especially not post-punk bands. They played out their career as planned, releasing one classic album among a string of impressive EPs, and then called it a day. Normally you'd chalk it up to drugs or suicide or a freak accident, but hearing loss works fine too. And that's it. Done. Sink back into the forgotten halls of post-punk one-off's that could've really been something and join a supergroup with a member of Blondie or the Talking Heads.

But no. These guys reunite, a dozen years after Vs. 12 years. This is not supposed to happen. But whatever, it's fine, let them put out their little shitty comeback record and have their day in the sun. Which they did.

Only Onoffon was fucking good. Like really good. Like you'd be forgiven if you were listening to it for the first time and couldn't tell it apart from Vs. Bands don't do repeat their glory days after a 12 year hiatus.

So they broke the mold, interrupted the routine, that's fine. One good album and a trip around the festival circuit back they go into obscurity and all is well with the world.

No. Then they release The Obliterati. And it's really, really fucking good. I mean this album is better than Vs. It's better than any album anybody put out in the wake of punk, and these guys are fucking old now.

You can't play angry abrasive angsty music when you're past your thirties. You just can't. (Unless your name is Steve Albini, of course.) But these guys do. The last track on the album is called "Nancy Reagan's Head," for fuck's sake. Who the hell do these guys think they are? This is not how the world works. Somebody should write a letter.

death funk - funk riot beat

Death Funk is the alter ego of Alec Empire, the seminal electronic artist responsible for the often maligned but never ignored brand of Digital Hardcore. There's no more death in it than can be found in Destroyer or Intelligence and Sacrifice, though by Empire's standards, this shit is funky as hell. The album employs his characteristic breakcore sounds, with those trademark Destroyer beats clammering in increasingly manic directions, constantly flipped and turned and made even more chaotic by the brilliant man at their helm. Yet throughout the album you get the feeling that this isn't quite an Alec Empire record. It can only be described as an angry German anarchist's idea of funk. There's the same breakbeat sound, but there's more behind it this time around, a use of more heavy bass and prodding beats mixed in with Public Enemy and Wu-Tang samples. Any given track on this album has more musical depth to it than all of Destroyer--whether or not that's a good thing, I'm not sure. But in the end, no fan of early Alec Empire or Atari Teenage Riot can afford to pass this one up.

girls - album

It takes exactly three listens to discover how truly terrible this album is, because the first two are mostly spent trying to recover from "Lust For Life," which is one of the best opening tracks to come out in a long, long time. On that third listen, you come back down to Earth and realize the truth.

Music doesn't get more unoriginal than this. This is "indie" at it's fucking worst. This is what's killing music in general. Take a bunch of semi-obscure influences, sing in an ironically terrible voice, throw a vague West Coast surfer sound over it all, and give it an incredibly overused band name. (Allmusic alone cites eleven bands named Girls.) Bam. You've got yourself a hipster phenomenon.

Some of these songs are downright awful. "Summertime"? Listen to that song again. There is absolutely nothing likable about it. The chorus is terrible and you know it. "Hellhole Ratrace"? Seven minutes of the singer whining about living the life of a sad bohemian, despite the fact that his underground stardom is completely based off of this image. It's all just horribly transparent bullshit tailor-made for people who want something trendy and easy to digest.

And yet "Lust For Life" is simply fantastic. What a song. Just goes to show you how far a good hook will take you. Hell, it fooled me into liking the whole damn album for months now.