Customer Reviews

Hole

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Discovering this album is like discovering masturbation. You think its wrong, but you still want to tell everyone you know about it. You decide not to cause your afraid that your friends will think your sick for loving it so much, so you sit in your room playing it over and over until you meet someone who shares your obsession and you become best friends forever. No it's not healthy, but do you think owning a Celine Dion album is?

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.

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.

This is one of the best albums I have ever heard. Every song on it is a masterpiece. It also works amazingly well as a concept album. Trent Reznor always says his albums are concept albums, but really, they are not. This is a concept album. You follow Foetus from his earthly days of sinning, through death, purgatory, arrival in Hell, and eventually, acceptance of an eternity among the Damned. Hard dance songs are combined with TG-type sound collages to provide the backdrop for Thirlwell's satirical tirades. Foetus is probably one of the greatest lyricists ever. This is just such a smart record. I can't endorse it enough. It's catchy as hell.

From the self-designed faux-"propagandart" cover, to the manic coda of "Sick Man" (which quotes from the Batman theme), to the Wipeout of The Damned epic ("Satan Place", with one of the best couplets in rock history: "I've been knock-knock-knock-knockin' on Death's door/Do you remember where you've seen this cadaver before?") to the slow meltdown of "Cold Day In Hell", this one-man orchestra of clatter demands your attention, and... by gum, shouldn't you answer?

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.

This is apparently out of print, but if you see a copy of this anywhere don't hesitate to pick it up. Jim Thirlwell sweeps the entire range of the perverse on this one, from gleefully Satanic surf-rock songs to haunting, tortured pieces about the Holocaust. One of the essential industrial-related releases of the 80's.

From the brilliance of his Batman themed 'Sick Man' (written about Nick Cave) to the mania of 'Water Torture' ('I'm condemned to eternal water torture'), this album is the one you need to pump you up for that night in Slimelight (gotta love that club). 15 years ago (!!!!) this had me jumping up and down and bouncing off walls and was my introduction to industrial/punk/rock with an anarchic edge. It sounds raw and a little unproduced (especially when compared to the orchestral sounds of Nail, his follow-up and just as brilliant album), but it is so full of life and energy and anger and mania and anarchy and noise it will change you and those friends broad-minded enough to listen to and love it. Get down on those waves to Satan's Place!

It is said that the U.S Senate is the most and selective powerful club in the world. Right up to Half Man-Half Biscuit's "The Bastard son of Dean Brinkman",knowing the words to "Satan's Place" marks you in a crowd more utterly secretive and as dangerously subvertive as anything the Senate could imagine. This is a MUST BUY for all those who remember Gibby Haynes before he sold out.

No matter how lousy I feel this always makes life livable. You have to have this. I have all his stuff except for Manorexia, York, Love, Ache, and the Marc Almond stuff. In addition with Hole this is the ultimate Foetus. Every song, especially Lust for Death, is GREAT. Alive, fun, and funny incorporating Beach Boys and TV themes, metal percussion, and witty lyrics. By chance I noticed JG Thirwell does the music for some show called Venture Bros on the Cartoon Network.