Pitchfork and Dusted both reviewed these guys' latest and theoretically last album. The pitchfork guy said that this was one of two albums that span their sound, and that newcomes should start with. Ok.
Well. These guys are arty. Fine. Velvet dissonance and disinterest, lots of clashy guitars, no real sense of pacing, no real interest in being especially pleasant to listen to. X + Y = Fuck You is a kind of brilliant, madcap stream of consciousness that should be heard once, and Dead Chick in the River is an ok art jam, but nothing I haven't heard before. But by then though my patience was wearing a little thin, and track 3 is goddamned unbearable, just sounding sloppy, lazy, and goddamned annoying, making the same shrill, skillless racket for 7 minutes without progress of any kind. I won't call much shit, but that song is album-ruiningly shit.
Zappa, Velvets, Beefheart, Boredoms, etc. They showed flashes of brilliant songwriting, and it justified their swerves and indulgences; judging by this album, Sun City Girls seem to think being weird is a substitute for actually writing any songs. The penultimate track is a 16 minute post-rocker that actually evolves and changes just enough, is just cohesive enough, and brings just enough riffage to work. It ends up being the highlight of the album, and the only song I'd be inclined to listen to again.
I'll probably check out their consensus best album, Torch of the Mystics, just to give the band a fair shake, but it's gonna be on a short leash 2/5
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THEY JUST AINT FOR YOU, BABY
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