Three 65, Day 21
Fishbone, Give A Monkey A Brain And He'll Swear He's The Center Of The Universe

Heh - my friend John is going to hate that I picked this album as my first Fishbone record review for the new blog. John hates this album, and I can perfectly understand why. After three albums of perfecting ska-punk-funk to a level bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers only dream of, Fishbone kind of threw it all away here, focusing on their metal side instead.

But, Monkey was my first Fishbone album, and I'm extremely nostalgic about it. The opening track, the crushing "Swim," was my first introduction to Fishbone, and it remains one of the band's more unique numbers. Under a punishing guitar riff, the band's singers - of which there are multiple, although Angelo Moore is the principal voice - wax eloquent in growls and groans about the wonders of moshing. It's an odd choice for the band's opening number, but Pantera would kill to have this kind of groove.

The next two tracks hurt the band's usually care-free stance even more: "Servitude" thrashes like Living Colour and "Black Flowers" - which John absolutely, totally, cannot stand - is a full on power ballad. But after that, on "Unyielding Conditioning" (one of the last songs founding member Kendall Jones wrote, before going fucking nuts and leaving the band for a cult), something amazing happens: The metal completely disappears. Over a vigorous horn section, the band bops and weaves its way through a delightfully sunny song that dispels all of the clouds summoned on the first three tracks. Pity record label Columbia chose to cut the song off towards the end, just as it gets going. "Conditioning" is still quite often the opening number at most Fishbone concerts.

Other highlights include the Mr. Bungle-esque "Drunk Skitzo" (on which Branford Marsalis lays down a killer sax solo), the ferocious "Warmth Of Your Breath" (I love any song that eviscerates cops, especially one that ends with a policeman licking his K9's ass), and the warm "Lemon Meringue." Also of note is the glorious P-funk of "Properties Of Propaganda" and the mellow "They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes."

I hope I've done a good job of pointing out the album's strengths here, um, John. Fishbone would go on to make more albums, and some of them were quite good. Try to catch them if they come to your town - despite their age, or perhaps because of it, they have the kind of veteran live experience few bands possess.

Three 65, Day 20
Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile

I really, really meant to start covering Nine Inch Nails' albums with the Broken EP, their second record (and finest distillation of their sound), but after listening to The Fragile on a drive earlier today, changed my mind. Considered by critics to be NIN's worst album, and lambasted by the musical press at large, the fans still love it, and so do I.

The Fragile was a turning point for Nine Inch Nails (which is basically the recording name for one man, Trent Reznor). Coming off of the previous album, The Downward Spiral, it seemed like things couldn't get any more hopeless. In contrast to that nihilistic record, The Fragile is (a little) more optimistic. Both "We're In This Together" and the title track hint at the possibility that things might work out.

But elsewhere, shit remains bleak. "Somewhat Damaged" is a stop-start anthem for the disenfranchised, with Reznor screaming "Where the fuck were you?" towards song's end. "The Wretched" is furious in its self loathing, "No, You Don't" shreds itself to pieces, and "The Great Below" is as dark as NIN gets. On the second disc, Reznor laments "try to save myself but myself keeps slipping away" on "Into The Void" and retains his anger at the outside world on the immortal "Starfuckers, Inc."

Of note is the abundance of instrumentals that fill (some would say pad, but I disagree) out this album. Most of them, like "Just Like You Imagined" and "The Mark Has Been Made," are like Reznor's other instrumentals: variations on a basic theme, spiraling outwards into complexity before returning to their root sound at the end. But "La Mer" and "Pilgrimage" step outside of that zone, the former being a piano ballad and the latter sounding like Nazis on the march.

The album is a concept record; it chronicles things falling apart, the collapse of systems. Unlike many such records, there is no concrete resolution at the end - if anything, the protagonist (if there is one) dies at its conclusion, on the instrumental "Ripe (With Decay)." Nine Inch Nails was never about easy answers or conflict resolution, so if you're looking for the type of conclusion that bookended, say, Pink Floyd's The Wall, you'd best look elsewhere.

Three 65, Day 19
Failure, Magnified

Failure are anything but. I first caught the band opening for Tool in 1994, and they nearly blew them off the stage. Their mix of feedback-y, shimmery guitar and bass-driven songwriting floored me, and throughout their (admittedly short) career, I have treasured the fact that no one else seems to know about them. It's a barometer of a person's musical taste, to me, if they've even heard of Failure.

A lot of people swear by the album that follows Magnified, Fantastic Planet, and I wanted to write about that, but decided on this record instead, partly because I'm a perverse fuck and partly because I like it better. Fantastic Planet is almost too ambitious in its scope, and the band occasionally loses sight of its goals there. Not so on Magnified; every track is a keeper.

The album opens with the gritty "Let It Drip," and it's there that we get our first taste of the Failure sound: bottom-heavy bass that leads the song, with guitar sounds to accentuate the central melody. Vocalist/guitarist Ken Andrews has a wonderful singing voice, both melodic and forceful, that complements the music greatly.

"Moth" and "Frogs," the latter about mental illness, go together and flow into one another seamlessly; "Bernie" is an ode to copping drugs from a remembered dealer in the park; and the title track, with its chilling lyrics about burning ants ("the sun's just a big glass / we're all ants / I love you"), is a perfect noise-pop masterpiece.

The band was comprised of two central members: Greg Edwards, who brought the bass, and the aforementioned Andrews. And they really were larger than the sum of their parts. After the band disbanded in 1997, Edwards went on to form Autolux, while Andrews (in addition to fronting some forgettable bands) became highly sought after for his production skills. Here's to hoping this is one more band that attempts the nostalgia trip, because nothing they've done since has measured up.

Three 65, Day 18
El-P, I'll Sleep When You're Dead

El-P used to be one half of influential underground rap group Company Flow; he's also well known for his role in developing Definitive Jux, one of the most important hip-hop labels of the 21st century. His solo work hasn't been perfectly consistent: His first album, Fantastic Damage, was a great piece of noise-rap, but it's admittedly off-putting (in the best possible way), and there are a lot of mixtapes, remixes, and collabs out there that don't always cast him in the best light.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead changed all of that. A rap album with a solid, post-apocalyptic focus and an absence of irritating skits, Sleep shows enormous growth on El-P's part, both as a producer and as a rapper - amazing, considering the fact that he was already well-respected when the record came out.

I don't want to talk about his rapping too much (his lyrics aren't great, but his flow's amazing); I want to focus on the music underneath. The album is chock full of guest spots. Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta croons the outro to "Tasmanian Pain Coaster," which also features the guitar talents of Matt Sweeney; Aesop Rock turns up on "Run The Numbers"; Cat Power appears a siren on "Poisenville Kids No Wins / Reprise"; and the elusive Trent Reznor lends his vocals and production talents to "Flyentology" (even though his contribution is little more than yelling "No!" every three seconds or so). These guest spots keep the album from becoming another run-of-the-mill hip-hop release.

The beats come fast and furious on "Up All Night," which carries its jittery braggadocio well. "The Overly Dramatic Truth" rides a solemn bass line and swelling strings to convey its message of frantic frustration. "Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love)," a science-fiction love story about the relationship between prisoner and jailer, is replete with sound effects and narrative dialogue that convey the story in a way no rapping can.

This was El-P's most recent album, so I can't discuss his future... but I'm looking forward to anything he may release, and to seeing him open for The Streets this summer.

Three 65, Day 17
Slayer, Reign In Blood

What more can I write about this, the heaviest and fastest of all metal albums? Reign In Blood was the first album Slayer worked on with producer Rick Rubin, and the change in their sound is evident from the moment the album starts: Instead of a doom-inspired slow heaviness, the riffs and drumming come at you with lightning-like speed, like a wall of blades flying into your face at Mach 10.

The whole record is like that. It's almost like a Tom & Jerry cartoon, actually: Everything happens at the speed of light, people die in horrible ways, mutilation and carnage reign supreme. I always have to emphasize this fact when people talk about Slayer in disgusted tones, like: "Ugh, Slayer, those guys are Nazis." Or, "Ugh, Slayer, those guys are into Satan." Yeah, they open the album with a song about Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who experimented on Jews during the Holocaust. Yeah, they frequently invoke the name of Satan and perform with an inverted cross rotating above the drummer.

Folks, it's all spectacle. There's nothing in the classic "Angel Of Death" that specifically endorses Josef Mengele, and the only reason the band flirts with Nazi propaganda is because it sells records and aggravates controversy. And as far as Satanism is concerned, the band had mostly abandoned that stance by the time of Reign In Blood, favoring concepts like death, disease, insanity, and religion - more "street-level" fare.

Keeping with the theme of cartoon as album, the record clocks in at a scant 30 minutes. When Rubin informed the band of this fact, their blank expressions were the only answer he needed. All of the songs run into another, creating a masterpiece of blended thrash that doesn't let up during its entire run - until the final song, "Raining Blood," which, when performed live, featured fake blood drizzling down on the band. Spectacle? It's all part of the show, folks.

Slayer have a lot of great albums. They slowed down their sound for South Of Heaven, varied it up with Seasons In The Abyss, and produced a near-classic in the recent Christ Illusion. But Reign In Blood isn't just Slayer's masterpiece; it's the finest heavy metal album of all time.

Three 65, Day 16
Fugazi, 13 Songs

It took me a long time to come around to Fugazi. I went to one of their concerts once, in an abandoned warehouse (typical), and held my ears for the duration of the show. I just wasn't getting it. I liked my punk rock straightforward and hated the sound of Guy Picciotto's voice.

But, eventually, I came around, first to Fugazi's later albums, which incorporate a lot of varied styles to them, and then, finally, to their landmark record, 13 Songs. Comprised of two EPs (the Fugazi EP and the Margin Walker EP), 13 Songs is Fugazi's first full-length release, and in my opinion, their finest hour.

A lot of guff has been made about Fugazi's monk-like existence. They don't smoke (not true); they don't drink (not true); they discourage moshing at their shows (very true). I think these are excuses made by people who don't want to open up to their sound and their lyrics, which are as potent as any in the punk rock omniverse.

Take "Waiting Room," for example. It sounds, at first, almost like reggae, but nothing could be further from the truth - that's just Fugazi appropriating other styles to serve their own purpose. Then, about a third of the way through the song, the bottom drops out, and the fury kicks in. In perfect call-and-response, dual vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Piciotto wax rhapsodic about waiting for things in life, instead of going out and making things happen. Theirs is a call-to-arms for a community of alternative slackers too apathetic to do most of their thinking for themselves.

"Suggestion" is powerful too, as MacKaye steps into the role of a woman, and how they are forced to deal with men on the long-term. Over a laid back guitar note, MacKaye croons: "We sit back like they taught us... We keep quiet like they taught us..." and closes with the assertion that "we are all guilty." Powerful stuff.

The second half of the album is equally powerful, especially the closing song, "Promises," which features the immortal couplet "Promises are shit / We speak the way we breathe." Fugazi would go on to release a lot of great, great albums before finally (and unofficially) calling it quits in the early 21st century. 13 Songs was just the beginning.

Three 65, Day 15
Jane's Addiction, Ritual De Lo Habitual

One of the first bands to bridge the gap between metalheads and college rock radio, Jane's Addiction were alternative with a capital A. They founded Lollapalooza, among other things, and put attention-hungry frontman Perry Farrell on the map as the spokesperson of disaffected youths everywhere. Never mind that he and the rest of the band were incorrigible heroin junkies; never mind that guitarist Dave Navarro grew up to be a shirtless sex God with nothing between his ears but visions of bouncing boobies. In 1990, Jane's Addiction was the first and last stop for above-ground tourists seeking underground thrills.

Ritual was their last album before breaking up for several years, and it was their last good album. An ambitious 51:30, Ritual is divided into two parts: the first half, a clutch of five unrelated rock tunes, and the second half, a series of truly otherworldly prog-rock numbers meant to evoke the memory of Xiola Blue, a friend of Perry's who died of a heroin overdose at the age of 19.

The first half is good. "Stop!," "Ain't No Right," and the immortal "Been Caught Stealing" are all great songs. But they pale in comparison to what the band does with the second half of the album, which starts with the epic "Three Days," almost 11 minutes of shifting and building rock fury that, by its end, threatens to set the world on fire. "Then She Did..." is a poignant reminder of Perry Farrell's mother, who committed suicide when he was young; "Of Course," often considered the most annoying song in the Jane's Addiction catalogue ("La la! La la! La la!"), carries a strong Middle Eastern influence. And "Classic Girl" is, well, "Classic."

The whole band brings something to the table on this album. There's the fiery guitar leads courtesy of Navarro, and Stephen Perkins' eclectic drumming. Farrell is, always, the consummate showman, but the real show here belongs to the bottom-heavy bass of Eric Avery, who also co-wrote many of the songs on this album. Avery is often considered the least essential member of Jane's Addiction, but I disagree, and if you care to argue the point, just listen to the abominable Strays or any of the live material released with other bassists.

The band would go through numerous line-up changes during multiple reunion and "relapse" tours, and a new album is expected this summer. I think they're wasting their time. Most bands only get to release one great album, and for Jane's, it was Ritual De Lo Habitual.