Jesus, not unlike their last release, these nutcases roll through 11 tracks in less than nine fuckin' minutes here. It's pretty similar to their previous EP in that it's noisy and chaotic insanity with some grinding metal riffs, a lot of rock, some "screamo" and hardcore, nutty new wave keyboards and electronics, relentless scathing screams, etc. They're all over the place, and they blast through with no regard. The songs don't hit me very much at all this time around, though. I like the subtly melodic aspects of "The Revolutionary Politics of Dance" a lot, but a lot of the other songs just sound crazy for the sake of it, and there's more of a faux rock 'n' roll thing happening that bugs me. It's not that the "novelty" of it all has worn off or anything, it's that this isn't as strong a release. It doesn't feel as focused to me, and it's definitely not as curious. I don't know, the last one was sort of like, "Holy shit, this is crazy!" And this one's just like, "Hmmm, yeah, this is nuts, but it's pretty boring." The recording is raw, but it does work. The mix can get a little cluttered since so much is going on, but you can hear all of the instruments, and everything is thick but dry, so it sounds pretty organic. There's a ton of CD-Rom material that includes four live performances - May 2003 in Philadelphia, Macrock 2003, More Than Music 2002, and July 2002 in Philadelphia (probably the best footage overall). Some of the audio can be on the noisy and abrasive side, but most of the actual video is fine, even though I'm not that into the band's live performances. They're totally nuts, but some of their wacky antics are really artsy and feel forced, and I pretty much can't tolerate anyone in any of the crowds for some reason. There's a fifth video called "Presto Majesto" that's dubbed a "fable", which basically equates to some weirdness generally set to the music of An Albatross. I will say that the whole CD-Rom aspect is put together very professionally, and the photo gallery and all of the menus work smoothly. The layout uses tons of bright colors and high contrast artwork with a 70's sort of vibe, but the lyrics, while subtly political, annoy me with their overuse of words like "baby" and "yeah" and all of their contrived rock-isms. This is an unusual band that definitely has their own brand of quirkiness happening, but I'm not as interested in what I'm hearing/experiencing here. The prior record was stronger both musically and lyrically.
[Ace Fu]
Running time - 8:20, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: The Revolutionary Politics of Dance, Wrgggggggrkyyyyyyy!!!]
Ace Fu Records - http://www.acefu.com
