Customer Reviews

House of Gvsb

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I must agree with the first part of the "music fan from Cali"'s review below. When I first picked up this CD on the recommendation of my friends Ted and Lobes, I was not impressed at all, except for the first song, the single "Super-Fire", which I liked more for one discordant, cool note in the guitar riff than for the song as a whole. :-) "Overrated," I told myself, and filed _House of GVSB_ away.

That filing-away turned out to be temporary. Every once in a while, I would get out this CD during a long drive in the car to hear "Super-Fire", and the aural treats of some of the other songs, especially "Disco 666", the discordant, atonal background noise bridge to "Life in Pink", and the driving riff to "TheKindaMzkYouLike" grew on me over time. I knew, almost a year and a half after first purchasing the CD, that it had completely grown on me when, while working delivering pizzas, I found myself singing, loudly enough to be heard by others, the line "Your baby's dress is on fire...." from "Wilmington" (which has replaced "Super-Fire" as my favorite song on the album) while walking up to complete strangers' doors to give them their food. :-)

Along with Soul Coughing's "El Oso" (her favorite album), this was the album that my girlfriend at the time and I most liked to....um....well...how shall I put this..."get it on" to. :-) And is it ever suited to that purpose. Other than Eli's breathy, low voice, I can't really describe why _House of GVSB_ is that way, but this is an incredibly erotic album. Great mood music for copulating 90s couples. :-) The songs are also well-written and originally-conceived, without subscribing to the usually bland alterna-formula that so many similar bands fall into. My friend John, on hearing this album, said, "This is what that stupid band Filter would sound like if they actually had talent," and after thinking about it a little, I kind of agree with him.

If you don't like this one at first, you might want to give it another chance - the charms of these songs are definitely not apparent on the first listen, but they reveal themselves over time. Or listen to it with your significant other; that might speed up the process some. :-) Which is probably just the way Girls Against Boys intended it.

I got this three years ago when i saw that the record shop I brought it from accidently confused this with a single so i got it for next to nothing ;-)It totaly blew me away, i'd never heard anything like this before. 'Super-fire' is a brilliant opening track, the two basses are formidable, and the guy's voice is great even if he can't carry out a melody very well (he smokes way too [much]). After that the quality never dips and all the songs sound different and fresh to my ears. I could try and review every track but i don't need to, just buy it and see what you think, you won't be disapointed. A week after getting this I had all their albums in my collection and i didn't have much money at the time so that was quite a big deal for me. I'm just gutted I still havn't seen them live, PLEASE COME TO WALES!!

I dunno what guy at the bottom is whining about, this album is one of the best in the last half of the decade, and as for it ripping off GLU, sorry, GVSB was doing this long before God Lives Underwater, and doing it much better than GLU ever will. songs like "Vera Cruz" and "Cash Machine" probably can't ever be topped by these NY bad boys. And seeing them live is an experience like nothing else, especially when Rage Against the Machine hits the stage right after GVSB is finished trashing your eardrums.

from reading the other reviews, it seems many people got this album only to listen to Super-fire. I'll admit, that song is a great way to open the album, and it is one of the best songs as well. However, this is an album where you can listen to every song without finding one you don't like, and no they are not all the same. From the first track, to TheKindaMzkYouLike to Wilmington, this is a very solid album. The last track, Zodiac Love Team, shows the band's industrial roots and could have come out of the sessions with Fugazi's Brendan Canty that became their Nineties vs. Eighties album. In my opinion, House of GVSB is one of the top three GVSB albums, along with Venus Luxure and Cruise Yourself. After this album came Freak*on*ica, which was too electronica for my taste, and then You Can't Fight What You Can't See, which is good but too polished in my opinion. This is an excellent overall album, but if you have never heard GVSB before, I would start with Venus Luxure, or maybe Cruise Yourself.

I cut my GVSB teeth on this one and the first listen didn't go well. At one point I was even going to sell it. But by then I started finding myself wanting to play it more and some more after that and the next thing I knew I loved every bit of it. Overall Venus Luxure is a better record but this is a close second. Favorite tracks: Click-Click, Wilmington, Zodiac Love Team, Super-fire.

From the oddly dissonant-yet-penetrating guitar in "Super-fire" to the swampy churning of the slowed-down "Zodiac Love Team," this album shows off most everything that GvsB have. The result: aural anarchy at its finest. There's not a bad track on this. Not quite as good as their excellent V-Lux (but what is?), it still is worth the price for the exhilarating ride to the core of depravity that it offers. This album is the perfect soundtrack to a late night excursion into the depths of the city's black heart, past broken down buildings with shattered windows illuminated only by yellow streetlights and the flickering neon of strip club lights.

This album is awesome. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

I saw Girls Against Boys in a small theater in New York City in 1995. The friend I went with remarked above the boom and beer that the band was "a very dangerous machine."

He was right. With two basses and an almost 60s farfisa-like keyboard, this band was all about thunder and wallop. It is incredible how enjoyable a giants boot can be when the boot lands in the middle of your living room. The singers rasp increases the booming footprint a few sizes

And that boom is what House Of GSVB is all about. This was not one of those 1990s album where the band preformed route genre experiments through a 70 minute album. This disc is short compared to the standards of the post-Nirvana era, but it is amazing how relentless Girl's Against Boy's attack is. Straight bass and damage through the entire album.

Which makes it work. This album dates well, and you'll hear why this band seemed ready to break big around 1996, back in the last days of a band and an album being able to take over what was still a small and local world. That world is gone now, and Girls Against Boys never did get the international fame they seemed poised to.

But listen to House Of GSVB, and you'll be scratching your head wondering why, as soon as you pick up that smear on the ground this album leaves--you.

Like some other reviewers, I wasn't impressed the first time I listened to this album and I put it away for a while. For some reason I dug it out a couple of months later and was surprised to find that it had started growing on me like crazy. It quickly became my favorite album and I spent many Saturdays listening to it while tearing around the local park on my skates. The lyrics aren't the most interesting or intelligent ones you'll hear, but this band is more about style than substance -- and style they have in spades.

I cut my GVSB teeth on this one and the first listen didn't go well. At one point I was even going to sell it. But by then I started finding myself wanting to play it more and some more after that and the next thing I knew I loved every bit of it. Overall Venus Luxure is a better record but this is a close second. Favorite tracks: Click-Click, Wilmington, Zodiac Love Team, Super-fire.

Although I was told by a girl at my work that GVSB rocked, I had to see for myself. Well, I was dissappionted. The albun is listenable maybe twice, then it serves better as background music. The album comes across as a mixture of "16Volt" and "God Lives underwater" all the while trying to be a little dancy. if you think pop is being run by acoustic guitars and mediocre vocals, well this album is definatly riding the similar NIN wave. Whispering trite vocals over thin loops, it just isn't very good, but of coarse, that is just my opinion.