Safety Second Body Last

Locust (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 22, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ipecac Recordings
• ASIN: B0007SL31K
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,359 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Armless and Overactive

2. Who's Handling the Population Paste

3. Invented Organs

4. New Tongue Sweepstakes

5. Consenting Abscess

6. One Decent Leg

7. Movement Across the Membrane

8. Oscillating Eyes

9. Immune System Overtime

10. Hairy Mouth

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

The Locust was formed in 1995 from the shards of San Diego hardcore stalwarts, Swing Kids and Struggle. The current lineup has been consistent for the past 4 years featuring Bobby Bray (also in Holy Molar), Joey Karam (formerly of Le Shok and Death Drug), Justin Pearson (Holy Molar, Some Girls) and Gabe Serbian (formerly of Cattle Decapitation).

Product Description

The Locust's "Safety Second, Body Last" came as a follow up to 2003's highly acclaimed "Plague Soundscapes" (10/10 in Spin and NME). These brand spanking new recordings may be the bands most (GASP) acessible yet in their long slew of releases in the last ten years. "Safety Second, Body Last" flows like a classical symphony, flying through five movements at lightening speed. Produced by Alex Newport (At The Drive In, Melvins, Panthers and many more), the tension, anxiety and release presented in this piece is enough to last you a lifetime.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's better than your genitals., April 22, 2005

By 

Necktie (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Safety Second Body Last (Audio CD)

Oftimes, a reviewer will set up a dichotomy for the fans of a band: "You'll either love them or hate them." they'll say, and because most folks love some rules to throw around with conviction, this cry is taken up.

But this is not the case. I neither loved nor hated The Locust. For the duration of my relationship to their music, I always viewed them as a drug dealing friend: A cool guy to bring to parties, but I never wanted to turn my back on him.

Alas, I made that mistake with SAFETY SECOND, BODY LAST. I turned my back, and the house party that is my appreciation for music lost its mind, wound up in some dank club in the heart of a bloody metropolis, the concrete walls seeping decay, the morals and physics of the world assidiously warped faster than the switch from "Armless and Overactive" to "Who's Handling the Population Paste."

What changed? Why has this plague, that once festered externally found a way into my blackened innards to gnaw a way to my heart?

The music once pressed in on me with claustrophobic ferocity, and existed as this unrelenting wall. On PLAGUE SOUNDSCAPES, The Locust was at the listener with the gusto of starving Hyenas, scratching away with riffs and apocalyptic keyboard acrobatics that seared and gouged with no breathing space, like the thirty-second blasts called "songs" were really long drawn out epics, but nobody would wait their turn for their various solos.

In SAFETY SECOND, BODY LAST, there IS that breathing room, as frenzied spasms give way to jarring atmospherics. And, somehow, those gasps do little to instil hope in the listener for any palatability of the music, more like a glimpse of hope as one is drawn back for an instant to catch their breath in a spray and then plunged back into a bathtub filled with cheap beer, mescaline and blood.

Another interesting aspect is the length of the songs. Previously, Locust songs could count themselves lucky to break the one-minute mark. Here, there are two tracks, spanning five "movements" with sub-parts.

Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek commentary on The Mars Volta and Green Day's sudden success with overwrought concept albums, perhaps an ernest attempt at branching out.

This IS, in the end, an EP, though, and furthermore a LOCUST EP, so the two tracks clock in at just barely over ten minutes. (Split 6min/3+min) And while fans may decry the lack of all out, rabid attack, this is the sort of luxurious slaughter that separates a gang fight from a serial killer, as the Locust chain the listener to the chair, and leave their face a mass of mushroom bruises.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not what it could have been., June 9, 2005

By 

Nathan M. (Frederick MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Safety Second Body Last (Audio CD)

If you are reading this review, you probably already know how insane the Locust are. This EP is good and crazy in the style of the Locust, but it is also lacking in some aspects. This EP has two songs on it, both of which are longer than any other by the Locust. But really, they are a bunch of short songs connected by bleeps and bloops. It's just like listening to something from Plague Soundscapes, except it been made longer by somewhat ambient sounds that connect everything together. It takes something away from the over all effect because you'll be getting into the song and the next thing you'll hear is some bloops instead on another instense song. It's good if you really like the Locust, but it's not a good place to start with them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars head buzz, April 5, 2005

By 

Author Brian Wallace (Mind Transmission, Inc.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Safety Second Body Last (Audio CD)

metal mind music to rearrange the neurons in your head and eviscerate your soul. You've gotta see this stuff live to fully appreciate the mayhem. They come in to pulverize and leave you bristling with energy. A fine swarm indeed.