Odds & Sods & Ends

Big Dumb Face – Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! (2001) **1/2
This was a loaner disc that I thought was so bizarre I had to make a copy. This is essentially a concept album about the hero of the people battling some demon from hell that runs a fairly interesting gamut of styles. It’s basically a one-man recording effort, with vocals sped-up for the upbeat tunes and slowed down and growled for the death metal ones. Yes, the guy who recorded this was obviously a metalhead, but with a sense of humor. That one man, as it turned out, was Wes Borland, who made a name for himself as the guitar player with the huge pupils from Limp Bizkit. Don’t worry, Fred Durst doesn’t get anywhere near this album – the sidemen include his brother and a few bandmates from other groups, though I can’t quite discern what their contribution is. It’s basically a tribute to Ween, with all the vocal manipulation, self-referential lyrics, and genre-hopping (which runs from death metal to rockabilly to speed country). You can also hear a definite Zappa influence (dick jokes and an insufferable 16-minute noise collage). There are a few neat riffs spread in here and there (“Kali is the Sweethog”), but it often comes off more obnoxious than anything (“Mighty Penis Laser”). Even with vocal manipulation, Borland simply isn’t a singer, and it’s not really an exaggeration to say that all of the vocals on this album are irritating. Entertaining, but irritating. At least his deep growl is somewhat passable (“Burgalveist”). Sure, Ween sometimes does the same thing, but Gene’s a much better vocalist, and they’re at least funny. That said, some of these tunes are just too goofy to not make you smile (“Duke Lion”, “Rebel”). Some of this is actually pretty good – the hooky and ridiculously catchy “Space Adventure” is a great tune that will be in your head for weeks, and the dark and brooding “Voices in the Wall” is genuinely creepy and well-written. I’d include “It’s Right in Here” on that list for its awesome chorus alone if not for the noise collage attached to the end. I guess you can credit this album for not being boring up until that point, and there is some genuine playlist fodder. Not bad for a toss-off.

The Colourfield – Virgins and Philistines (1985) ****1/2
This was Terry Hall’s third band (after the Specials and Fun Boy Three), and one that’s been pretty much destined to go down in obscurity, despite nearly placing a single in the top 10. It’s too bad, because this album is fantastic. Although they’ve often been branded as New Wave, the music itself has a pastoral pop feel – there’s plenty of acoustic guitar, strings, horns, and organ. In other words, it’s more 60’s than 80’s, but the production sounds modern. This is lush, fully orchestrated pop, with no shortage of quality hooks – the tracks are often fairly complex and usually feature well-placed string arrangements and horn flourishes. They do rock out on occasion (the terrific “Faint Hearts”, which goes into acoustic-hyperdrive near the end), but it’s mostly a display of pristine and beautiful pop tunes. There’s usually a Latin flavor, sometimes in rhythm (“Castles in the Air”, the title track), sometimes in the use of neat touches such as flamenco guitar. It’s pleasant enough that you don’t even mind Hall’s angst-ridden lyrical barbs (“Take”, “Thinking of You”), or Meat is Murder-style ranting (“Cruel Circus”). It sometimes gets so heavy-handed that you almost can’t believe this was the guy belting out “Do the Dog” a few years prior. Despite the lyrics, Terry’s voice does deliver enough emotion to carry the tunes on their back (I can’t imagine “Thinking of You” working with any other singer). But the album’s best asset is the songs themselves – each one of these tunes is an entity onto itself, and there are a couple good ideas in all of them. The arrangements and performances are top notch – not only are the songs good, but it just sounds great, too. The album’s highlight comes near the middle with a cover of the Roches’ “Hammond Song”, which features a beautiful, building arrangement and spirited vocals from Hall that blow the top off the original. So it’s definitely worth seeking out, but it’s so rare there it’s tough to find copies for less than $100 (and sometimes top $300). This album is seriously in need of a reissue - I would think the album could become some sort of post-mortem underground classic the way Crazy Rhythms did. Luckily, it’s not too hard to find on the internet – try to find the Japanese disc, which featured ten bonus tracks, including earlier, more rocking material (“The Colourfield”, which was their first single, “Your Love Was Smashing”, “Pushing Up the Daisies”), as well as a few oft-covered tunes like “Windmills of Your Mind” and “I Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” (the one that Smash Mouth and Pizza Hut would later team up to ruin for good).

So what happened to the Colourfield? A few lineup changes may have created inner turmoil – after a 6 song-EP with mostly material you’d find here, they did record a second album, though it didn’t retain the lush arrangements and quality songwriting found here. Hall didn’t like the direction the band was going and broke them up, later going on to release a series of sporadic solo releases.

The Immortals – Mortal Kombat the Album (1994) ***
Mortal Kombat is rarely talked about anymore, but for a period of time in the 90’s it was the hottest video game franchise around. Not only was the series one of the first to be geared towards an adult audience (back when video games were mostly thought of as a child’s toy), but the gratuitous amounts of blood and violence drew national headlines, which was the best publicity a video game could hope for. Being swept up in the craze as a kid, I owned not only the soundtrack album but this somewhat-forgotten disc. One thing that the series was famous for that it doesn’t really have anymore was its sense of campiness, the adherence to the questionable policy that the more blood and screaming, the better (which made the first movie just entertaining enough to be worth watching). If you’ve heard the popular techno Mortal Kombat theme (actually called “Techno Syndrome”), you know the style of over-the-top, in-your-face music you get here. It is both obnoxious and downright hilarious – the beginning of “Prepare Yourself” has a few lyrics introducing Mortal Kombat, then suddenly jumps to “Johnny Cage is not afraid to die!!” That’s actually a pretty good representative of the ridiculous lyrics that fill this album. Liu Kang’s song (“Born in China”) features plenty of samples of his Bruce Lee-inspired screaming plastered over the top of heavy techno music - what could possibly be more extreme? How about the ridiculous falsetto singing that singlehandedly makes Scorpion’s “Lost Soul, Bent on Revenge” awesome (or ruins it)? What’s most surprising is that this is not bad - it was made by Praga Khan from the Lords of Acid, not exactly a bum off the streets - he lends a professional touch (and some pretty cool vocals), even if he does recycle ideas from time to time. One of the songs actually is legitimately great - Sub Zero’s tune (“Chinese Ninja Warrior”) is surprisingly melodically strong and has a fantastic vocal part, and is the only song I can say that I can enjoy even without the camp value (although there’s plenty of that too). Otherwise, it’s basically KLF-inspired house music – hell, the massively successful “Techno Syndrome” even borrows the main hook from “What Time is Love?” I think Drummond and Cauty would actually be proud of that. Khan has the good sense to keep it all concise – somehow I think that extending any of the running times past 5 minutes would just kill it, although the album does wind up a bit short at 37 minutes. There could have been one for Shang Tsung…all the other MK1 characters were represented. They could have done one for Reptile too - I'll even write the lyrics: "Rep-tile/Green masked warrior/I fought you on "The Pit"/They say you are a hidden character/But you don't have to hide from me/I understand you, Reptile!" If you were a fan of the game’s over-the-top campiness, you’ll have a blast with this. Either way, I’d bet it makes pretty good workout music.

Kelly – Shoes (2006) **
Yeah, only two stars, but it’s not like they tried very hard. “Kelly” is actually a guy named Liam Sullivan, who plays this Valley Girl-imitating character to substantial Youtube success. What you get here is basically the songs without the videos, so you’re really only getting half the joke. His/her voice is not particularly funny, even if it does sound like a deeper version of people I actually know (especially in the way “bitch” is pronounced like “betch”…those people drive me crazy). Luckily, there’s only seven different songs here, one of which he/she doesn’t even appear on (“Where Do You Think You’re Going In That?”, which I think is a satire on old Jewish women, but I can’t be sure). There are a few funny lines here and there (“No Booty Calls”), and the back-up vocals on “What R U Guys Talking About” did make me laugh. It’s definitely a neat sense of humor with no obvious punchlines, but the concept in itself is kind of a dud. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to like this character or despise her. And one of the songs doesn’t even have any jokes at all (“My Romantic Pattern”). This is an odd duck, to be sure. Musically, it’s actually fairly competent, done most in a bland metallic electroclash style with a few neat production tricks. Nothing that sticks in your head, but it doesn’t take away from the idea. With only seven tracks, it’s only really EP length, but they do add four remixes of the album tracks to flesh it out (including a Canadian version of “What R U Guys Talking About” that just replaces “about” with “aboot”). So it is entertaining, but what grade can you give an only-theoretically funny comedy album that you can really only listen to twice? I’d skip this and head for The Lonely Island to see this sort of humor done right.