Search - Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel :: Hole

Pure joyful madness!

Michael G. Hannaford | Sacramento, CA USA | 05/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This incredible album still blows my mind after ten years of listening. I can only assume that every Foetus fan has heard it by now, so this review is directed at the Foetus newbie who wonders if this is the next one s/he should buy after "Flow". The answer is a resounding YES YES YES. This is good ol' Jim Thirlwell at his 80's peak, recording his deliciously witty, musically insane songs in some scummy studio with no sequencers or Pro-Tools or any of them other computerized falsifiers of evidence that abound these days. You have to imagine this one man, undoubtedly drunk, locked in a dark room with a delay pedal, recording the beginnings of "I'll Meet You in Poland, Baby," spending hours twiddling the delay knobs to get all those samples to line up JUST RIGHT. You gotta imagine him laying down the drum track, then the next drum track, then another and another and another... then a bass track... then horns, organ, guitar, millions of vocals - like Satan's version of Prince. Knocking off everything from punk to jazz to Iggy Pop to the Beach Boys to old school funk along the way... nothing is safe from the Foetus tirade.But as much as I love his music, the real reason why I love Foetus so much is the words. The dark humor, the endless puns, the never-ending string of witticisms - I don't know why, I just love them. Example, from "Satan Place" : "I'm knock-knock-knock-knockin on death's door / do you remember where you've seen this cadaver before / this swan song's sung on a watery grave / blow your brains out, baby!"Foetus isn't for everybody, much as I want to believe he is; very few of the dozens of people I've played him for have picked up the ball and run with it. Let's just say this: if you are looking for an artist truly out of the ordinary, truly weird, ridiculously talented, and with many, many axes to grind - then Foetus is your man, and this is your next album."

Not the penultimate, but damn good.

Bighairydoofus | Brooklyn Park, MN United States | 11/06/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"
If you're easily offended, well, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.



"Satan Place" is a song about a man going to hell set to surf music...



Compare this with music made by poseurs like Marilyn Hanson, ten years later. They made music without one iota of the inspiration or passion (or dare I say it... HUMOR) that exists here. This is the real deal. Circa '89 you got an extra disc when you bought this album on vinyl, seek it out if you care...



This was provacative madness via mid 80's agitpop... Mr. Thirlwell's opus "Nail" is better, but not by much. Awesome cutting edge music not for the faint of heart.



I'll see you in Poland, baby."

#1 Indie album of 1984

ChrisWN | Santa Cruz, CA | 03/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"1984, time to reminisce. All of the newspapers are commenting on how Orwell's vision didn't come to pass, while Reagan & Thatcher are hatching their little wars. Alternative goes mainstream, Eurythmics write the soundtrack for 1984, Art of Noise duet with Max Headroom, and FGTH's video for Two Tribes gets banned from MTV in the daytime. So where's alternative headed? Either the folk/60's inspired rock in the US (REM, Let's Active...) or towards more experimental synth/goth/industrial hybrids in the EU/UK (Sisters of Mercy, Einsturzende Neubauten,...). So Ministry & J. Thirwell go against the grain in the US & (initially) get more attention overseas than in the US. I was quite interested in this one because it sat on top of the NME's indie album chart for the longest time (I got most of my indie music info from the NME reviews & charts) & although I had never heard it, concluded it must be good (if it could stay there longer than the usual 1 week norm), needless to say the band name helped. So when it finally got a domestic release, I gave up the cash despite the fact that I hadn't heard a note. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Although I wasn't a big fan of Big Black (except for the early singles), I found this combination of industrial, rock, synths & dramatic (dare I say operatic) vocals to be quite compelling. More musical and literate than most punk that preceded it, yet no chance of it ever becoming the soundtrack for a cola ad. Listening to it again, more than 20 years later, it holds up pretty well. Still quite catchy. Too bad that the bonus EP isn't included as extra tracks though."