Customer Reviews

Other Mathematics

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

 

 

This isn't my type of music but I can't get enough of it. I don't pretend to understand the Ex-Models' many influences (though Talking Heads, Wire, Gang Of Four come to mind) but I do understand that musically they're off-the-hook creative. Harmonically, rhythmically, social comentarically they're in a league of their own. Their songs are hyper kinetic, always changing, completely and solidly fresh.

All tracks scream through the excellent recording, with the possible exception of "orbital & nuclear," which is insturmentally too sparse to be relevant to the subject matter.

I can only imagine that this band gives a wicked live show, with head-man Shahin Motia bobbing about like a lunatic David Byrne. Hope to see them in concert some day -- until then I'll be content with playing this LOUD enough to make my ear drums bleed.

A definite buy for anyone who loves punk, is a punk, or at one point met a punk.

This album rocks. Have had it for a while and never get sick of it. Think Gang of Four, Wire, Talking Heads even. Best tracks are 'Supersex', 'It's on Television' and 'Girlfriend is Worse'. With jarring tempo changes and vocals like a cat dragging under a freight train this album scratches a dirty key down the side of David Byrne's limousine.

Heard these guys for the first time while flying down the FDR in NYC. They were doing a live show on a local radio station and I was BLOWN AWAY. I couldn't find this album soon enough. NOBODY knew who these guys were when I was trying to find OTHER MATHEMATICS. Eventually found it in an "Other Music" in Boston and ended up seeing them in Philly. NO ONE puts on a show like these guys. THE LIARS were supposed to open up for them, but couldn't make it last minute, so they tried to lengthen their show. Unfortunately, one of their guitar amps all but melted after the first two songs. They asked if anyone in the crowd had an extra Mesa Boogie in their cars. The rest of the set was with only one guitar (and bass and drums, of course). Still a HELLUVA' show!!!

How to describe the album? I wrote a review for it once that did it NO justice. In short, it's like a fusion of the most abrasive, early XTC, guitar wise, with smatterings of DEVO (which also can be applied to the vocal style). But nice 'n' HARD!! And time signatures??? Being a drummer, I HAD to tell their's after the gig that I have no idea where they're going sometimes on these songs, as far as rhythm goes. "Tell you the truth. We really don't either."

BUY THIS ALBUM if you have a single bone in your body that appreciates where the future of music is!!!

this album is amazing. it's energetic and really inventive. the complexity and weirdness of the songs doesn't stop them from being catchy. and finally it's refreshingly concise; the ex models don't waste your precious time. they don't bore you with gratuitous repetition or subtlety. they just hammer home the musical point they want to make and that's it, onto the next song. usually i would feel cheated by a 24-minute running time, but there was more than enough delicious content packed into this short album to keep me satisfied. i saw them live and they were amazingly spastic and full of energy. by the end of their set, the two guitarists had about 3 intact strings left between them. for real.

Delicious melange of the best moments of angular rock's past(early Gang of Four, Wire, Talking Heads, Devo, etc.) in a concise dosage. Goes by so fast and enjoyably I can't cite a bad song. Unsure if this will go anywhere or if it'll just lose its immediacy with refinement like so many of its ancestors. If you like Brainiac or Six Finger Sattelite, you will probably like this. It has this indefinable mid-western "noise" vibe. We need more stuff like this: cathartic, messy, art-rock. I won't give it that extra star because I can't listen to it all the time since all the songs are cut from the same spastic cloth. But what a song it is!I am waiting for the full length!

WOW this is bad. Reading other reviews and being interested in tech/math rock metal, I almost have to laugh at the thought of these guys being any where close to either. I was turned on to them b/c some people compared them to Hella. This is basic straight forward stuff. Nothing like Hella and no tech math about it. Yea there are changes but nothing off the wall or new at all. The beats are boaring and most of the all the vocals are without a doubt probably the WORST I have ever encountered. I tried to block them out and listen for some interesting instrumental stuff but couldn't really find much of that either. If I can find someone to give this to I will (pity on them), otherwise its going right in the trash where it belongs. 0 Stars if I could.