Customer Reviews

Doa

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those who think they've heard it all....Throbbing Gristle is the sound of the begining of the end. Truly frightening. Screaming, tape loops, random noise collages, recorded conversations, primitive synthesizers. Revolutionary and hugely influential, and this is over 25 years old ! D.O.A. makes Skinny Puppy sound like Snoopy, makes Ministry sound like a church choir, and makes Nine Inch Nails sound like sewing needles. I'm only sorry it took me this long to discover Throbbing Gristle.

here's those plucky kids from TG to entertain you on this, their second release & first one to be primarily studio recordings. at this point in their career (3 years after forming), perhaps they were tired of being pigeonholed as a sick all-noise band, so they begin to stretch out by including a solo recording from each throbbing member. as they each contribute something different to the mix, plus they were a band where each person stood out with a unique personality, i'd like to compare each solo recording with the solo equivalent of another band that released solo material from all 4 members that year: kiss. sleazy's "valley of the shadow..." is, like peter criss' entire album, filler. also, if you're gonna be all dark & gross & ... well, sleazy, at least try not to be BORING! speaking of boring, here's cosey's "hometime", which compares to paul stanley's solo; it SOUNDS like TG (very atmospheric with found sound overlaid), but it just kind of lays there, quite inert. at least its half as long as sleazy's, so its here and gone before you know it. chris' "ab/7" is the epiphany of the album. its a SONG - a melodic, danceable, catchy one. chris always seemed out of place in TG (the musician vs the "artistes"), but this short piece established he had a future on his own, just like ace frehley's rockin' lp. which leaves us with little gen, who so obviously is the gene simmons of the group, but here, he catches you off guard. "weeping" is a very heartfelt sad song about gen being dumped by paul stanley, very original sounding, and extremely suprising, much like gene singing "when you wish upon a star", except much much much better.
all this said, the group compositions in the studio ("Dead on Arrival", "Hamburger Lady", "IBM") are among the best they ever did, and the live cuts "hit by a rock" and "blood on the floor" are the first outright signs of TG possessing a "normal" sense of humor (or at least as normal a sense as they could possess).
a cool platter!

Coming out of the aural sludgefest of '2nd Annual Report', Throbbing Gristle started wresting its noise into song-like structures on this release. And it does work. Like the following release, '20 Jazz-funk Greats', this is a seminally-important release from the early period of industrial music from the people who pioneered the term. Hints of the more polished, sequenced electronics that were to come can be found on 'AB/7A', but by and large, this album is more the domain of the noise-mass approach from their prior release, with things wrested into more 'manageable' chunks. But by no means does this mean this is a 'basic sophomore' effort; rather, this is where the real ride begins for those wanting to get deeper into TG's catalog.

I've listened to this album exactly once, on a pair of headphones. The experience was so thrilling and unsettling that I don't know which I'm more afraid of -- that listening to it twice would diminish the impact, or that it wouldn't.

Throbbing Gristle's "Dead On Arrival- The 3rd and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle" is one of the most inventive albums ever produced. Every track has a completely different approach. It's as if with each track they started from scratch and scrapped past methods. With little to no exception, every track on DOA is a successful exercise in anti-musical atmospherics.

In my opinion the most successful tracks are-
"Weeping" is haunting and menacing, a violin masterpiece with a real melody and an organic feel. One of TG's most memorable moments. "Hamburger Lady" is another fantastic track, supposedly simulating the feel of the inside of a hospital ward where a burn victim resides. It kind of reminds me of driving in intense rain with the wipers going. "E-Coli" combines low synth with cornet and samples of dialogue related to the E-Coli virus, very effective as well. "Walls of Sound" is several TG performances spliced together, sounds a bit like a construction yard.

Some of the other pieces-
"I.B.M" is an inhuman and somewhat grating beginning to the album. "In the Valley of the Shadow of Death" is the first real ambient piece on the album, a spacious, 'grey' feeling mix of static, conversation and weather. This is followed by "Dead on Arrival" which is sort of reminiscient of a moving vehicle or working machine. "Hometime" is supposed to capture the feeling of being at home after school as a child (according to Cosey) and does so, with soft echoing guitar notes. "AB/7A" is a great early synth song. There are also some live snippets, a sped up version of older song "United", some death threats left on TG's answering machines, and 2 bonus songs from singles released in the era in which this was released on vinyl.

What makes this a great album is its amazing diversity and flow- no track overstays its welcome. The less interesting and effective tracks are also the shortest ones. "D.O.A." accomplishes psychologically what many groups with today's technology still can't manage, and it was created with homemade equipment.

Beautiful industrial music for beautiful industrial people. TG invented the noisy, grim aesthetic and this is their swan song. "Weeping" will stay with you for years.

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: "A dark lyrical content dominates these 15 tracks." - Myles Boisen

A strange review, considering A.) At least half of the album is instrumental, and B.) Most of the words cannot be understood. Anyway, it is very good, the clear standout being "Hamburger Lady", which is downright frightening. Throbbing Gristle is hard to describe, even harder to compare them with anything else. Which, of course, is part of the attraction.

this is a cool album, way out there. while deffinetly not belonging to any genre (this is even weirder than most of the so called kraut rock stuff) throbbing gristle holds all of it together for most of the record. there are a few nearly worthless tracks such as 'valley of the shadow of the dead,' which does have a few cool sounds but is mostly just a recording of people talking. however 'dead on arrival' 'IBM,' and 'hambuger lady' are fantastic. i don't really like five knuckle shuffle that much, but blood on the floor and hit by a rock are very cool punk sounding songs that deffinetly help to break up the record. over all its a cool weird recording.

True pioneers of Industrial music, Throbbing Gristle created this genre of music (or anti-music). Their live shows are legendary (how fortunate for those who were there).

Buy this cd, buy all of Throbbing Gristle's cd's. Listen and learn.

We hate you (poseurs!!)

IT MUST HAVE BEEN A DIFFICULT TASK FOR CRITICS AND SCKEPTICS TO PLACE TB'S MUSIC IN A CERTAIN CATEGORY (PUNK ROCK BEING THE CLOSEST ONE)WAY BACK IN THE LATE 70'S. BUT IT WAS CERTAIN THAT THEY HAD STUMBLED UPON ONE OF THE MOST ABSTRACT,INOVATIVE, AND INFLUENTIAL MUSICAL OUTFITS EVER. WITH THE RELEASE OF "D.O.A", THROBBING GRISTLE ESTABLISHED ITSELF AS A FORCE TO BE RECONED WITH ,AND MARKED THE BEGINNING OF AN INDUSTRIAL/SYNTH DRIVEN ERA THAT WOULD CHANGE CONTEPORARY MUSIC FOR EVER. BEING MORE CONSISTENT AND ARTICULATE THAT ITS PREDECESSOR (THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT),"D.O.A" FINDS THE "BAND" IN A MORE EXPERIMENTAL PHASE. YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A FAN OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC OR ANY OF ITS' SUB-GENRES(NOISE/GOTHIC/DARKWAVE/HEAVY) WITHOUT HAVING AT LEAST HEARD ANY OF TB'S MATERIAL. REMEMEBER THERE WOULD BE NO NINE INCH NAILS OR SKINNY PUPPY OR EVEN MERZBOW WITHOUT THE GROUND-BREAKING EFFORTS OF TB, FROM WICH THEY DREW THEIR MAIN INFLUENCE.WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR POSEUR?BUY THIS ALBUM NOW!!!