Customer Reviews

Grand Opening & Closing

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Imagine, if you, can a cross of King Crimon's _Thrak_, GWAR, early Thinking Plague, and the Art Bears (SGM's Carla sounds somewhat like a sweeter Dagmar Krause too) played by demonic midgets ripped on peyote wailing away on a panoply of homemade instruments.

Okay...you're part way to what Sleepytime Gorilla Museum unleashes on this album. Truly, this ensemble is in a league of its own and even the above description will only scratch the surface. I love it - currently this is one of the best avant-garde rock albums I have.

I will try not to pull a cheap cop-out on the reviewing job with a "this is too hard to describe" line. The music here is wickedly dense and challenging, full of discordant bursts, twisted arrangements, texture to drown in, thick waves of percussion (::gasp::), crashing metal, bewildering contrapuntal interplay, and provocative 20th century classical influences. It's noisy without being abrasive, and challenging without being hard to listen to. Vocals run from sugar-sweet (Carla Kihlstredt) to the throaty male aggressiveness (whoever the lead male voice is). From the spooky-to-crashing dynamics of "Ablutions", the raucous thrashing of "1997", the fractured RIO/indie of "The Stain"... this record oozes ingenuity and brilliance out of every pore. The skeptical may find it tough to take these guys seriously, but this is really quite cerebral and fascinating music. And if you think it's all scary-weird stuff, "Sunflower" is surprising -- just eight minutes of dreamy, sparse ambiance that barely even seems to make sound. Really beautiful but strange. The one-minute "The Miniature" is quite a pretty interlude as well.

This is the kind of music that most will hate and few will love. I am one of the few. I would kill to see their live show as everyone who sees it says it is disgustingly good. So I recommend you try and check that out as well even though I can't personally vouch for it. Hwrah! _Grand Opening and Closing_ is an album to pick up -- it could better than anything you've bought lately.

This album caught me totally by surprise.

Granted, I didn't really know what I was walking into when I picked it up, it was only a recommendation from a friend who listens to good music. Now you won't have to be surprised; just go ahead and get this album.

This band is truly pushing experimental music in new directions. I say experimental, but it's really mostly rock of the progressive kind, very angular and often heavy, but solid. The musicianship of these people blows my mind regularly. From the first off-kilter notes of the first song, "Sleep is Wrong" (a killer tune about growing up) you can tell that they have put a LOT of time into writing, and then a lot more into perfecting their recordings.

There is definitely a lot of metal influence, but I can't call it metal because it is more intricate and even beautiful than any music that calls itself metal. Also could be said to have jazz influence, but mostly in how the music is painstakingly and dynamically arranged.

In other words, this album is hard to describe. But is is sooo damn good.

After seeing this band live I am convinced that in the future we will look back on this band as one who created and personified a whole movement of music; Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are the new Futurists.

I would recommend this album to anyone who appreciates daring experimental music (such as Mike Patton or John Zorn), or to anyone who likes their rock heavy and interesting (like Shellac or Nine Inch Nails), or to anyone at all, ever. This band will command your attention.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will frighten you the first time you listen to "Grand Opening and Closing", in fact, to anyone that considers Radiohead "the pinnacle of experimental rock" (hey man, got nothing against them, but they are hardly experimental), I advise you just stay away from this album.

Like a perfect mix of 70's and Thrak era King Crimson, The Residents, and Thinking Plague. SGM could best be described as Avant Prog, long winding "songs" that act more as collages of sound balance out the main pieces of music like Sleep is Wrong and 1997. And for the average music fan, this will be annoying as it gets. But for every listen you give the album, more of it becomes amazing to you.

Also, check out the past bands of some of the memebers, Idiot Flesh and Tin Hat Trio. Idiot Flesh is more like SGM, but Tin Hat Trio I would describe as Tom Waits influenced Chamber Jazz. Very good stuff.

From rebellious anthems against slumber, inspired pleas to party like it's 1997, to the mottos of 18th century phrenologists, it's all here. But what is it? An aural assault to say the least, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum bombards the ears with fierce angularity and sweet dissonance in their own infectious way. The curators of this museum have strung together an eclectic exhibit featuring a wide array of styles: the crunchy riffs and shouts of "Sleep is Wrong", the thrash metal of "1997", the RIO chamber "Ablutions" or the ambient "Sunflower". While you might have heard all these disparate elements elsewhere, never before have they been combined in the same insanely creative way.

Strange noises abound on the album, made to great use on "Powerless", the opening low frequency notes being coaxed out of what I presume to be Rathbun's amplified spring instrument, not the only homemade instrument put to use here. Both the music and the instruments that help to create it show the same desire for innnovation. Almost all of Moe!'s percussion ensemble is made of trash, banged upon and beaten on. There's even an amplified circular saw blade in his repertoire.

Some comparisons might be apt here: the dense, metallic edginess of mid-period King Crimson, at times the sparse, song based RIO of the Art Bears (and Carla has a strong voice somewhat reminiscent of Dagmar) and more modern avant/RIO like Thinking Plague. But these are just scratching the surface. This is some of the most inspired material to come out this year - "music that not only pushes boundaries but breaks them down with an axe". Well, maybe more like a roto-tiller.

If there is such a thing as MIO (Metal-In-Opposition) then this is it. I wasn't entirly sure what I was getting into when I put this on for the first time. I was greeted with a dark, aggressive and crushing album. Other reviewers are right to liken this album to a cross between Thinking Plague, Mr Bungle and King Crimson as it has the avant garde melodies of the first, the wackyness of the second and the dissonance of the thrid (well, their more recent, experimental work anyway).

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's strength is that the note choices, odd rhythms are very much in line with avant-prog/RIO bands like Henry Cow and Thinking Plague whilst being overtly metal at the same time. It's not much of a challenge to mimic the avant-garde aesthetic but it is a great challenge to genuinely capture it and make it your own. There are times throughout this album that send chills down my spine. Other times they seem determined to make your ears bleed with dissonance and noise. Likewise, their metal elements do not disappoint. These guys rock. They groove. They make you bang your head. It's a combination I didn't think would work but it really really does.

Despite comparing to other bands there is nothing that sounds quite like this. SGM are totally unique and recommended to any fan of experimental metal or hard edged avant rock.

It would make sense why these guys will be opening for Secret Chiefs 3 in performance--Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who even record on a similar label with Secret Chiefs, has that mixture of avant-garde noise with an almost death-metal sensibility, being somewhat reminiscent of pre-_California_ Mr. Bungle, when you had to wonder if maybe you were donating money with the purchse of your disc to some really sick creatures who might go an do something evil with your money--I know I had a little trepidation when I heard the 'street recordings' on the Mr. Bungle eponymous album and had to wonder if I was funding _Bumfights_ or something like that.

But there is an extra spin to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum in that their music comes out of a lot of improvisation. Usually a term reserved for jazzy music and Zorn-noise, improvisation in Sleepytime Gorilla Museum seems to intone a kind of tribal perversity. With this in mind, I would tend to put this band more in the group of Master Musicians of Bukkake--wonderfully loud and quiet and disturbing music that gives you the wonderful sense of needing a shower afterwards. I am looking forward to seeing them live.

Mr. Bungle's long ten year stint as my favorite band has come to an end. Of course, they ceased to exist a few years back so I guess a change in my personal musical hierarchy was a bit overdue. It was actually SGM's new record, Of Natural History, that put them over the top, but I had just about worn a groove in my Grand Opening and Closing cd by the time the new record came out.

I have already tried unsuccessfully to describe SGM's music in my review of Of Natural History. I will now try and fail again.

What we have here is modern rock music that is truly informed by an authentic twentieth-century classical/avant garde sensibility (think Webern, Partch, Stravinsky, Zappa, Weill...). This music is extremely evocative and almost theatrical. It is at once primitive and intellectual (like Stravisky's Rite of Spring). There are long, multi-measure phrases, stuttering-syncopated ostinatos, jarringly beautiful melodies, purposeful but unordinary harmony, and lush, scintilating timbres that will "prick up the ears" of any true lover of sound.

Sleepytime is not your typical, pedestrian prog-rock affair. They are mavericks in a time of musical rot.

This is one heckuva group! You'll understand by reading any description of them: they use homemade instruments as well as traditional ones, modern composition methods, and rock sensibilities to create a very strong album. Words cannot describe what they sound like, however, and you'll just have to listen to decide if you like them or not, but oh yeah, you'll like 'em!

The use of the violin is superb; many bands attempt bowed instruments, but few can pull it off like Carla can here; the violin seems to be just as much of an integral part of the melody as the rest of the instruments. Even when she breaks out odd items and plays them, it still seems to fit the sound. The riffs are also cleverly crafted, blending an exotic, often atonal feel to them, but still maintaining an incredibly catchy line in many places. The vocals are very dependent on the listener for likability; I find them very powerful and emotional, as a fan of death metal, and I enjoy these more even than most death vocals because of their emotional quality. The percussion stands out as one of the best percussion sections I've ever heard. Think "Lark's Tounge" King Crimson, with the Jamie Muir oddness, but more powerful and with much more exciting style... I think I may have to find Moe!'s other albums...

The only drawback to this CD is that it's not consistently strong. The first track is amazing, the second is very good, the fourth is fun and really good, the fifth is beautiful (if a bit short), and the sixth is very emotional. 10 also has some very good moments. But 3, 7, and 9 seem to be letdowns. they have moments, but usually I don't want to wait through the rest of the song.

However, you should still buy this the first chance you get; even (as many reviews say) if only for the first song; this song, possibly with the 4th and 7th, you will play over and over and over and over and.....

P.S. If you have a chance to go to a live show, they're brilliant performance artists as well and the shows are much more fun than most flat music sets at concerts. Go! Watch! Enjoy!

being a musician and lover of music that doesn't fear to stray from off the beaten path, i can honestly say that the sleepytime gorilla museum is dark, complex, and brilliant. ever since purchasing this album (over a year ago)it has been a main-stay of my "current top-5 CDs".

sleepytime gorilla museum features carla kihlstedt (of tin hat trio and the charming hostess big band)as well as former members of idiot flesh. but if you are a kihlstedt fan, don't expect a laid back tin hat trio album, instead, brace yourself for a hair-raising experience of homemade percussion, distorted guitars,thrashing violin and throat ripping vocals. that's not to say that this album is composed soley of the above properties. in fact, the amazing thing about this album is where it can meet you in the still and quiet moments. this band is so diverse and so talented. on one track you may hear a wild ruckus reminiscent of TOOL (except better) or dillinger escape plan whilst the next track's orchestration is nothing more than several autoharps softly reflecting on stillness. simply put, one moment your head is reeling and your mind is racing, the next, you are cut up in the serenity of life. all of this is achieved without a start-and-stop, herky-jerky detachment, but with an unbelievabley seemless flow.

in addition, the CD's packaging and jacket insure that this is no ordinary, music-industry jewel-case regurgitation, but an extremely intelligent and artistic group of individuals who really have something to say and deserve every listener they can get.

you've never heard anything like it. i recommend purchasing this album immediately because you will not regret it (unless of course you like music with no more than 4 chords).

unmistakabley dadaist. unmistakabely amazing!

Let me start off by saying that this is not an easy album to review, especially for me, because I'm not familiar with any of the previous avant-garde prog bands. But I managed to pick up this album, and I think it's brilliant, so I'll make an attempt at a review anyway.

This is easily the most bizarre album in my collection, first of all. Some influences I can hear are King Crimson, Zappa, Gwar, and from what I've heard, Thinking Plague. Basically, the music is a mix of thrashing heavy metal, Crimson-esque guitar lines and arpeggios, male screaming vocals, softer female vocals, and a violin and a bunch of homemade instruments as well.

"Sleep is Wrong" is one of my favorite songs. After fading in with some weird noises, a polymetric Zappa-esque guitar line comes in. The drums seem to be playing three measures of 4/4 and one of 3, and I don't know what time the guitar is in. After this, a slow metal riff comes in, in 5/4, and the male vocals start. Later, there is a section in which Carla begins to sing "when I grow up, I'm never gonna sleep...", that my mind tells me is out of place, but I just think it fits so perfectly. This is bizarre music. But very good.

"1997" is almost a straight up metal song (with an awesome guitar riff that starts the song out), but the odd guitar and violin lines and some interesting rythym changes make this one unique as well. "Ambugaton" is mostly instrumental, except for when someone yells "ambugaton!". This one really reminds me of King Crimson. It starts off with eerie guitar arpeggios, and builds up to some evil riffing that if I didn't know better, I would say could only be played by Robert Fripp. "Ablutions" is even more eerie, with Carla's high voice singing over strange melodies. "The Stain" is maybe the most challenging song on here. It's full of crazy complex instrumental interplay, which I'm told is reminiscent of Thinking Plague. Both vocalists are harmonizing in this one, and I don't know how they came up with this stuff. Brilliant. "The Miniature" is a nice interlude as well, showing SGM's ability to create prettier music, as opposed to eerie, evil stuff (though this song is less than a minute long). "Sunflower" is a nice, pretty song too, though it's not really a song, just some nice noise.

Honestly, this album is bizarre. Don't buy it if you're not ready for something that's totally out there. This album is not for everyone. But I really think this is brilliant music of the highest order. I file it under "crazy brilliance", like Mr. Bungle. If you're looking for something interesting, this will definitely do the trick.