Saturday, August 20, 2005

Music Review: Jello Biafra w/ the Melvins "Never Breathe What You Can't See"

Never Mind the Dead Kennedys reunion- Here's Biafra- sounding angrier and fronting a band that comes closest to the old rocking band of his youth than, well anything since DOA on the album he did with them. In some ways, this is the album that we need right now- and then... on a number of tracks, Biafra shoots bizarrely wide of the mark.

The first thing you notice here is how hard the Melvins rock on this one. They sound like a punk band, which is more than a bit wierd if you've ever listened to their sludgy metal stuff. But, it's actually the first Jello-combo that I've actually really wanted to see live. Every song on the record is musically tight- even when the lyrics are a bit unreflexive. Oddly enough, it veers towards jam band at times too.

Jello's said the title is just something that King Buzzo said to him as a joke, but it actually fits the album pretty well because it's a laughably ridiculous warning, and the lyrics tend to parody the current security state. You sort of expect this from Biafra, and part of the problem is that you expect this from Biafra. Half of the songs sound like collections of quips that Biafra probably repeats again and again in his daily life.

"Plethysmograph" is a musically furious parody of that bizarre interrogation machine in which a creepy John Ashcroft injures himself while fooling around with the thing. "McGruff the Crime Dog" imagines a solution to the terrorism and unemployment problems in which everyone gets their own spy in McGruff mask following them everywhere. "Caped Crusader" is a truly creepy portrait of a religious terrorist, with "lyrical assistance" from Ashcroft and Mohammad Atta. This is probably the best song as it attacks religious fanaticism and sends chills down your spine.

Now, for the bad- "Islamic Bomb" uses a fantastic guitar line for lyrics that make the exact same point that Jello did in the song "War Pimp Renaissance" off of LARD's Pure Chewing Satisfaction. Perhaps, I can let that slide. But, then "The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism" is exactly the same joke he made in "I Wanna Be a Drug Sniffing Dog" off of Pure Chewing Satisfaction, as well as a misguided attack on airport personnel. "Yuppie Cadillac" is a fun parody of SUV drivers. But "Enchanted Thoughtfist" asks people not to take Biafra seriously and sounds like cobbled together soundbites from spoken-word albums. "Don't just question authority/ Question everything!" Okay. And "Dawn of the Locusts" is perhaps the best thing he's done musically in twenty years, with lyrics that sound like a teenage punk band. "Corporate logos are the new swastikas/ for the patriotically incorrect hordes." Ugh. Not much to chew on there. It's nice that he's rallying the troops here, but which troops and for what? You know what I'd love to see? Biafra doing a whole spoken word album or even musical album where he just talks about his life, instead of political analysis. Because, honestly, he's getting a bit canned in that area.

So, musically, this album shreds. And lyrically, it's about half-good. Which is really strange since Biafra is paid to speak. Maybe, he could use an editor.

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