Customer Reviews

Horrible Truth About Burma

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

 

 

This album is a real nostalgia trip for me. I became aquainted with Mission of Burma as a student in Boston in 1979. It was a time of great creative ferment in the avant-garde scene, both in jazz and in rock. MOB blew me away when I first heard Revolver on WBCN. I followed the band as much as I could at the time, and continued to be interested in Roger Miller's followup band Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. But MOB had it all. It had the raw rage of British punk, but the experimental attitude of other avant-rock groups like Pere Ubu, who are their most clear forebears. And the lyrics were smart...this was college student's punk.

This album captures much of the energy of that period. The cuts include the biggest hit, Revolver, along with numbers from Vs., MOB's strongest work, and other cuts that never made it to wax during the band's lifetime. The playing on the album is white hot, and Mike Swope's tape loop work is even more creative than on the studio work. And the more atmospheric work is prescient of the electronic ambient music of the later 80s and 90s. And though there is the requiset thrash and slash on the album, the writing and playing is excellent. These aren't guys who just learned to play their instruments, they are true creative musicians.

One big problem with the album however is the recorded sound. Though not bad for music recorded in small bars around the country, it is still kind of muddy and at times, the instruments overpower the singing. MOB shouted with the best of the punkers, but you could usually hear them over the din. That's not always the case here and you loose something by not hearing all the lyrics.

All in all though, this is one of the best underground bands of the early 80s. It amazes me that it still sounds fresh, even after 20 years (though I suppose I shouldn't be amazed since the Velvet Underground still sounds fresh as well and it's been 40 years for them!) So many bands in the late 90s and today seem to think that they've invented punk attitude. MOB has them all down cold.

First, I implore you to ignore abrasive, mediocre reviews. This, a document of the final tour by a band gone WAY before their time, is wonderful.
A live album can be a tricky thing, but Burma delivered onstage & that is captured to good effect here. Cover songs are monsters (Stooges & Pere Ubu) and originals are given that extra kick (Peking Spring ROCKS). Martin Swope in particular is revealed here as a fuller collaborator that on the studio albums, tweaking, spindling, folding & mutilating chunks of the band' playing & sending them back though the sound system in realtime via analog tape loops, way before any samplers were around. Fine stuff from a band having one last blast of decibels before hanging it up.

Mission of Burma were a classic indie rock band. Unfortunately, though their songs are excellent, thought provoking pieces of material, their producer never quite got their sound right so that the live experience was never fully captured. This documents them on their farewell tour. I saw them live on their reunion tour and this really lives up to the Mission of Burma experience. All of the songs are filled with the raw energy and sincerity that was supposed to be there on the studio versions but is somehow lacking. This is a great album to start with.

Don't let any negative reviews scare you away: If you really want to know what Mission of Burma were about Back In The Day, look no further: The Horrible Truth perfectly captures the brilliant, brutal fury of this hugely influential band at their very peak.

Guitarist Roger Miller often said that the reason Vs., Burma's widely acclaimed studio masterpiece, so eclipsed their earlier studio efforts was the fact that Vs. was essentially recorded live in the studio. By extrapolation then, "The Horrible Truth" is an even more significant recording than Vs., because it captures all the immediacy and rawness of Burma in an actual live setting.

That Burma was/is really a live band, and not creatures of the studio, is an important point. Every twist and wierd effect you hear on Vs. can be -- and was in fact intended to be -- reproduced in real time in a live setting. If you have been lucky enough to catch Burma live, you will know I do not exaggerate when I say that their live shows blow away anything they've recorded in the studio -- with perhaps the exception of The Horrible Truth.

So what you get here are roaring, sizzling, edgy performances -- especially "Tremelo", "1970" and the jaw-dropping Pere Ubu cover, "Heart Of Darkness" -- albeit with a slightly less refined mix than what one would expect from a studio recording like Vs. But make no mistake: this is essential Burma.

mission of burma,one of the good ole punk bands that makes sense!this music is not like you're wanna be's 1990's pop so called punk bands(please)!you know its good when the singer is almost deaf!

Hey is that other message from Martin Swope? Tape god extrordinaire?

Abrasive, mediocre live recording by the band that cut the brilliant "Vs.".