Customer Reviews

The Finger

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

 

 

Like "Jeff Smith" I picked this album up at a Babyland show earlier this month before it was officaily released. I have to say I totally dig this album, and it is probably my favorite since "a total let down". To me it seems like they've been able to really combine the all out thrashing-sawing-stuff-up-agressive sounds of some of their earlier stuff with the more electronic influced stuff they did on "outlive your enemies" and the "2002" EP. And it is great to see that babyland are still producing progressive, thought provoking music, 15 years afther they first started.

The middle of the album really does slow down with "Cabrini Manor", and "Startled by the Obvious". And I have to admit these weren't my favorite songs on the CD, BUT they did grow on me, and I very much enjoy them now. I have to say the real standouts on this album are "Loss Leader", "Defeated", and "Nativity" (probably one of my favorite babyland songs now). It also includs some great stuff from the two EP's they released between "Outlive Your Enemies" and this release. And as great as this band is on records they are AMAZING live. If you ever have the chance of seeing these guys play live lie, cheat, steal, whatever, just get there!

I caught Babyland for the first time earlier this month, after wanting to see them for a long time. It was a truly amazing show. I picked up the new album there as well. Once I got home from the show, I popped the disc in, and I was sucked in. The album is all over the place, with fast songs, slow songs, all of which are filled with emotion, and not a single dud amongst them. Some tracks may take a little time to grow on you, but when they do, you'll really dig them.

Highlights include "Defeated" which is a really dance-y track, "Nativity", a fast aggressive track that makes me want to play old Mega Man games, and of course "Gehry", a pop song that makes you feel really good and positive. I love every song on this CD, and it's one of my favorite albums of the year. I've listened to it almost every day since I've bought it. The only (minor) complaint I have about the album is that it slows down a bit in the middle. Perhaps they should have switched the order of songs a bit, and put a faster song in there somewhere.

Now get this album and support these independent artists.

The average listener would probably find a couple of lads banging and sawing around on metal tables and barrels somewhat primitive, perhaps savage, but this is the same crowd who also thought John Cage was a simpleton. Furthermore, if Lenin had rallied a musical accompaniment, it would have been Babyland; more industrial hymns for the red book carrying intellectuals of the millennium generation. Dan Gatto and Smith design combustible concrete jungle anthems in the latest installment The Finger, a mildly disturbing reflection of social unrest and ever present proverbial struggle. Babyland's sound on this album metaphorically embodies complexity and composition much like the ecological sedimentation of the earth; raw, yet a consistent emersion of the most essential digital ingredients with the visceral clang of early 20th century mechanization.
Really the autonomous strength of the twosome is never fully recognized until you've seen a live performance which mirrors the studio tracks consistently and loyally, a feat perhaps vied by many contemporary electronic artists.
So what conception ultimately pervades with Babyland's music again and again is materialized in their latest project, a cohesive dialect between callous machinery and aggressive lyrical eloquence. Franz Kafka often postulated existence through his own existential demise; arguably human error and fallacy. The Finger mimics the ardent philosophers who challenged continuance in spite of mortal frailty and addresses the consequence of myth without relinquishing defeat. It is brilliance that can come out of destruction; certainly Babyland is poised deep in the infantry of sound, armed with ingenuity and the countenance of change.

Come on people - get it - and get it?
Is this enough to understand?
Is this enough to catch on?
Is this enough to buy?
GET OUT YOUR WALLET AND PURCHASE THIS THING!!!!!! you won't regret it.
Bump it in your CLUB, YOUR CAR, YOUR HOUSE, FOR YOR FRIENDS, FOR YOUR HEAD, hell - take it to my mom's house and play it for her too - and be a part.
Babyland has laid down the welcome Mattress - hop on!
If you buy one album this year - buy this thing.
If you buy ten albums this year - buy ten of these things.
I won't even lower its standing to call it an album - its a thing.
Lyrics with heart, mind and soul - no way! even a purpose?
Music that is so alive you can tell who's playng it on the first que?
Whats that you say you're broke?
Get another job for a week and quit after you get enough money for this album...
you won't regret it.
Babyland's got another thing comin'