Customer Reviews

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This may well be one of the most unpleasant albums I have ever heard. Not that the music is atrocious or the singing is annoying, rather that the records unfailingly bleak outlook on humanity and the inclusion of some truly disgusting samples and effects make this one of the ultimate uneasy listening experiences. Needless to say, I really like it.
SGM fall somewhere between the clinical, super heavy and rhythmically confrontational metal of Meshuggah, the eclecticism of Mr. Bungle, and the willfully complex and initially difficult to appreciate stylings of avant prog like Thinking Plague. Far from being a mixture of the above though, SGM moulds this (pretty diverse) set of influences into a mammoth display of instrumental prowess, schizophrenic sampling and claustrophobic production, obscure and baffling lyrics and even a little techno half song which degenerates into a Meshuggah style pounding guitar fest. I think the bands finest achievement then, flying in the face of such carefree experimentation (as an album, this is probably the epitome of anti commercialism) is that it does craft memorable songs, and even produces moments of, albeit chilly and never fully comfortable, beauty.
For instance, the first track, 'Hymn To The Morning Star', adapts the words from a TV theme, I believe, into a chilling ballad of sorts. The initial verses are delivered with a very Mike Patton esque croon, and when the chorus eventually kicks in, female vocals back up the male to very creepy effect. The song acts as an introduction to the second track, which sees the band let rip in full on metal mode. Convoluted rhythms and interlocking dynamics are the order of the day here, but it is particularly impressive to see the band incorporate winds, and an array of percussion instruments to lend the song an avant-ish edge as well. Brutal and constantly exciting, this is one of my favourite tracks. 'The Freedom' Club, the first lengthy piece, really sees SGM run the full gamut of its musical scope: a lilting, haunting initial section unfolds into a a driving rock oriented buildup, with some funny lyrics, before exploding into a full no thrash metal assault with Meshuggah dynamics and death-esque vocals. This track is exciting and inventive, but it probably plays second fiddle to the astonishing epic closer, 'Babydoctor' as the albums most ambitious track. Indeed, 'Babydoctor' might just be one of the most unsettling pieces of music yet, on an album littered with such triumphs. Strangely melodic and eerie, the song once again builds to a thrash conclusion but fleshes out the beginning stages with a far more atmospheric aesthetic and some accessible melodies. Its a fine note to draw the album to a close, the hilarious little sing along 'Cockroach' notwithstanding.
Such a marriage of metal and avant prog certainly wont appeal to everyone. I'd also warn this album is not for the squeamish, and requires repeat listens. Despite this, SGM are an extremely original and challenging band, the issues raised here are somewhat interesting and are pretty strange ground for a metal band to cover (they seem to be advocating a return to a kind of pre-industrial Edenic utopia, although the whole album is constructed in a decidedly tongue in cheek manner) and the playing and production are mind-blowing. Highly recommended to fans of this sort of thing, but bear in mind this is far out the mainstream it has grown legs and evolved into a quite different beast. Careful how you approach it.

Does music get any better than this?

Of the many excellent avant rock groups making music in the Bay area, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is the most excellent. Their first release, Grand Opening and Closing, was a virtually unknown masterpiece and, in my humble opinion, a milestone in the history of rock music. OF Natural History improves on their debut and earns SGM the exalted honor of My Favorite Band.

I am reluctant to make comparisons to describe this music. There are familiar aspects, but I can't help but feel that comparisons will only confuse. Deprived of reference, I am left with mere adjectives and we all know how inadequate these can be when trying to describe music.

I will say that this is serious music written and played by serious musicians. All aspects, harmony, rhythm, melody, and, most strikingly, timbre, are exciting and captivating. Absorbing the textures of SGM's aural palate is like tasting exotic cuisine after a lifetime of mush. I'm terrible at similes. The unconventional percussion, the vocal styling, the timbres of the guitars, along with Carla Kihlstedt's (Vocals, Violin) huge bag of virtuosic, ingenious tricks conspire to create music that is vibrant with aural color and makes me breathe faster and get goosebumps.

This is next level stuff.

The libretto is dark and cerebral. It centers around the idea of an inverse evolution that works alongside the "progressive" one. As humanity evolves, it also devolves by emulating the characteristics of lower and lower life forms until it finally comes to its present state of insect-like efficiency. Interesting stuff.

This CD (and all of the SGM work) is a great work of classical music or a rock classic -- only time will tell.

1. Story -- It has the great and complex depth of its story line of a Wagner, Mahler or Richard Strauss.

2. Dynamics -- The push and pull of the music and the story-teller can only be compared to the great Puccini.

3. Technical skill -- The virtuosity of the musicians can be compared to a great string quarter such as the Juilliard or Italian or to a witch docktor such as Paganini.

4. Philosophical -- Primitivism and futurism combined in one great elegant rant. Think Sex Pistols who were educated and were upset about the nature of reality -- not just the Queen of England and the class system.

5. Impact -- The impact of the music is liberating and requires clear and reflection to be even partially digested.

6. Sources -- They draw from heavy metal, Bartok, Berg, carnival music, Weil, etc. etc. etc.

You got it -- this is a powerhouse. I believe they are mostly classically trained. The violinist could be a reincarnation of Paganini himself.

I saw them live in Portland and they made a lasting impression of real high art -- intense beyond belief -- like watching Wagner's Ring sped up to a one hour sitting. If your mother and father like modern classical atonal music -- take them to a live show -- you will need a good set of earplugs, good scotch, and a shower after the show.

I've listened to a lot of extreme metal bands. I can recall listening to my first Cannibal Corpse album, and thinking, "Wow, that's intense."

Then I moved up to Meshuggah, which was quite a leap. I thought, "Wow, this is intense."

And then I have come to this. This might already be some sort of cliche, but if you can picture the way the apocalypse might sound, you're still not hitting this album. Seriously, I listened to "Freedom Club", went along with the soft part with the vibe-like instruments playing, and then the math professor dream, and WHAM!!!

I'm surprised I came out alive. Mind you, these were large speakers, and I didn't expect anything that infernal to come out. Think Meshuggah with more instruments, a more demanding singer, and an overall greater burden for a listener to bear. I was in shock for about ten minutes. Well, not really, but this song in particular just made me flip.

Even before that magnum opus, there's the opening song, which has to be some sort of tongue-in-cheek stab at evangelical music, or something. I was confused, but then the lyrics to the female-male sung part clued me in. "The greatest lie ever told" and a song about "the infant God" usually don't go together. But, surely enough, they do here. Great background harmonies, by the way.

"Phthisis" is another thing completely. The female vocals are absolutely amazing, in that they convey tons of emotion. One of the things I noticed about this album is that the lyrics are genius, something that doesn't stop on any one song. But the vocals on this song always make shivers go up my spine. They're not scary, they're just aurally arresting.

Oh, and don't let me forget "Babydoctor", which could be even more intense than "Freedom Club" plus all the other songs. If one song could define a band's career, it would be this one. Agonizingly brutal vocals, without all the cookie-monster/Dani Filth scream [...]. The guy sounds like he needs therapy. But, given the album's message, the assault might be necessary to implant an idea into one's head. Just a theory.

So, all ends with the twisted kid song parody "Cockroach", and then there's a hidden track that is basically just ambience. But you've made it through the abyss. The word harsh takes on a whole new meaning on this album.

Don't expect other types of intensity. There's no black metal, no gore metal, no stereotypical death metal, no stereotypical thrash. It's completely in its own little world. For instance, most percussion on this album was hand made from things like kitchen utensils and trash cans and other common "non-instruments". Who else does that? I can't think of any other metal band that uses homemade percussion.

It's not death metal. It's not really anything that's been documented previously. If it's not your favorite, you're eventually going to admit it was at least a memorable experience. Trust me, if you dig Bungle or Thinking Plague, you'll go apes**t after hearing this.

AWESOMELY AWESOME TOTALLY RECOMMENDED FOR FANS OF: Meshuggah, Mr. Bungle (or other non-FNM Patton metal projects), Thinking Plague, Rock-In-Opposition, Frank Zappa (although that's almost a stretch, almost)

SGM give us the follow-up album to their astonishing debut "Grand Opening and Closing". If I could award 10 stars out of 5 to "Grand Opening and Closing" I'd have no problem awarding 5 out of 5 to "Of Natural History". Seems to me, though, that their musical focus and daring has slipped somewhat on this one despite the fact that the lyrics project a stronger philosophical focus - rampant technology and its eroding impact on our lives. Their first album consistently sends chills up my spine even after repeated listenings. The themes are more personal and inward looking, from the disturbing rant against sleep and adulthood (Sleep is Wrong) to the even more powerful and disturbing rumination on dying and indomitable spirit (Sleepytime: Spirit is a Bone). In this latest effort we have a consistent political theme based somewhat loosely on the ideas of Ted Kosinski. Whereas the 1st album was an awe-inspiring step forward musically (with evolutionary links to one of my all time favorite avant works: King Crimson's 1973 "Lark's Tongues in Aspic"), the 2nd album seems to take a step backwards to the looser theatrical stylings of Idiot Flesh, SGM's previous incarnation. The new album does have its moments. This time, Carla Kihlstedt seems to have provided the more focused songs (although the songs are apparently extensively reworked and refined by the group as a whole) but Nils Frykdahl's voice and writing can still terrify. All in all, "Of Natural History" is extremely good and I listen to it repeatedly, but "Grand Opening and Closing" makes my desert island selection. Buy them both and check out Idiot Flesh "The Nothing Show" (available at the SGM website).

Much like Naked City and the Boredoms before them, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum have staked out a comfortable niche as demonic stepchildren of the avant-garde genre, but one should definitely never infer that the word comfortable could be used in connection with their music. In contrast, Of Natural History is one challenging and distinctive album, sounding sort of like the mutant offspring of Mr. Bungle, Korn, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Meshuggah, and Nickelback (okay, I made that last one up). Vicious metal, highlighted by doomy guitar noise and jagged, contrapuntal rhythms, mixes with heavy symphonic elements and some out-of-left-field weirdness in a seemingly random and haphazard way, but that doesn't mean there isn't some method to SGM's madness, as the songs on this album are some of the most bizarrely fascinating of the decade thus far. Vocally, as well, Of Natural History is all over the map, incorporating fearsome howls, Jonathan Davis-style scat, haunting, ethereal female vocals, and some almost comically dark bass crooning and spoken word into its unpredictable pastiche of styles. Since the songs are so schizophrenic and wide-ranging, hopping from one sound to another without warning and often ending in a completely different form than that in which they started, it's sort of tough to describe them in much depth, but the album is probably best summed up by its twin 10-minute plus epics, FC: The Freedom Club and Baby Doctor. The former is a fierce, chugging monster whose warped metallic riffage and feral vox are underlain by dizzying string arrangements and clanging percussion for an effect that nicely conjures up the feeling of going insane; the latter steadily builds from a mournful, eerily minimal orchestral rock tune to something that sounds sort of like how early-70's Can might have sounded had they been fronted by Beelzebub himself. There are tons of other great songs here--the overbearingly heavy and evil The Donkey-Headed Adversary Of Humanity Opens The Discussion, the pile-driving Phthisis, and the hilarious tell-off Cockroach among them--but really, everything on this album is worth a listen. So if you're as bored by the current mainstream music scene as I am (and if your IQ is in the triple digits, you should be) Of Natural History should serve to jar you out of your doldrums for a few hours.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's (SGM) first album caught me completely by surprise and became one of the few albums from last year that I continually went back to. While their live album was mostly disappointing, there were a couple gems in there. I didn't know what to think when I saw a new album was coming.

Rest assured, "Of Natural History" is pure, rocking SGM.

I have to disagree with the earlier review. I believe that The Creature and Cockroach are great songs - the virtues of SGM are not simply in crazy musical chops, but also setting mood by the tone of delivery in lyrics and the lyrical content itself.

I highly reccomend Of Natural History, but I'd have to say get Grand Opening and Closing first if you haven't.

Somewhere there is a lunatic in his room. His tangled hair emphasizes the crazed look in his eyes as he loudly espouses his illogical philosophy, yelling, ranting, screaming, the veins on his neck trying to free themselves, his hands twisted into desperate claws. In an instant he's sobbing in the corner: weak, fragile, and broken. Now he speaks coherently, his back to you, rocking slightly. In this tranquil state his words are seductive and poetic, his delivery making the insanity he speaks sound logical, and you instinctively move towards him. As you reach down to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder he springs up, grabbing you with a wild shriek and the last thing you see is a bizarre handmade contraption that he uses to bludgeon you into unconsciousness.

Such is the music on Of Natural History by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

It has been said that this album is almost impossible to describe. Not everything becomes evident to ones ears right away, and even now I'm still hearing new parts in songs. The excellence of the songs does not become clear right away either. At first, 'Babydoctor' may seem like it has a first half that is almost uninteresting or "skippable". But after a little while, it becomes a very much needed part of the song.

The use of instrumentation on this album is phenomenal as well. There are even some homemade little beauties to be heard. The bowed spatula just being an example of one. For anyone that has ever said that drums and percussion are only for rythm and are otherwise boring or pointless, this album will change that. For anyone that has ever said that the bass is an unnecessary instrument, used only as a backbone in music, this album will change that. The musical talent of this group is tremendous; a force to be reckoned with.

As far as the songs go, they build up and up until the they explode, causing a apocalyptic euphoria of sound to sweep over the grounds of the listener's mind. It's truely incredible.

This album is not to be understood at once, but with time, it reveals itself to be a truely astonashing masterpiece.

When did THIS happen? I've been getting their albums off of Astropitch for the past year. Of course maybe this is for the better, since they'll probably get more exposure this way.

I came across SGM almost a year ago when they were playing dates with Dredg... Being that it's almost been a year, I've listened Grand Opening and Closing into the ground, so I was deffinitly ready for this to come out. I wasn't sure what to expect. The clips on Mimicry Records's website represented a more "normal" type of album. Not that it would have been necessarily a BAD thing if it was, although I'm glad that the clips were misrepresentative - this album is just as fascinating as the first one.

As a warning though, it's extremely dark, a lot more dark in lyrical content that Grand Opening and Closing. I have a friend who was crying by the end of the album when she sat down with the lyrics and read along with the songs.

Although I am growing extremely fond of this album, it does have it's misses. They're totally forgiveable, and subject to opinion as well. I will still point them out as I go through it song by song

1. A Hymn to the Morning Star - I get the impression this is a lyrically adapted obscure show tune. Very creepy during the chorus when Carla begins to sing along. It's an interesting way to open up an album, although perhaps not the perfect song to open THIS particular album up with. I was originally irked by the effect this song has by changing moods so abruptly to the second track, however it is growing on me.

2. The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity Opens the Discussion - very strong song. A very heavy song with guitar in the forefront, comparable to a longer "Sleep is Wrong." Personally this is one of my favorites on the album. I feel this song is done up pretty much to it's full potential.

3. Phthisis - This song starts out very strong. However, I feel it lacks direction. It starts out feeling like it's going to go somewhere and it mostly does not. This does not make it a bad song. In fact, it's a very GOOD song in the wider perspective of songs by other bands. However, I feel more could have been done with it.

4. Bring Back the Apocalypse - Awesome percussion song with a hyper-electronica part at the beginning comparable to Radiohead's "Idioteque" which turns into a Meshuggah-like groove metal song about halfway through. Still, not one of the strongest songs on the album by comparison.

5. FC: The Freedom Club - "A song about the backwards-looking dream of the unabomber"... this is another of my favorites on the album. It's very emotional and intense, and builds to a very fast heavy metal part with tremelo-picking in the guitar. My one and only complaint really is that it sort of just dies out towards the end and goes back into the creepy ballad part from the beginning. I'm not complaining about the note it ends on but rather that it's so anti-climactic after such a intense song. As a songwriter I realize how difficult subtleties like this can be to get just right, and this way works. I just feel that extra push could have made it an almost PERFECT song instead of just an extremely good song, which SGM tends to produce a lot of.

6. Gunday's Child - Very creepy and emotionally intense song. It feels short to me for some reason, although I'm well aware that the case says it is 6:23 long. One of the strongest songs on the album, it does not have any spots in which I can think of something that could have been done better.

7. 17 Year Cicada - I usually like transition tracks, they usually help hold an album together conceptually and artistically. Now not to say I don't like this one, it's hypnotic to listen to and it's a good transition track. It was also necessary to put this song here to cool you off after two very serious songs, since The Creature is NOT a very serious song, musically at least. However for this same reason, it's difficult to listen to this track, since it's very mellow coming right after so many intense songs.

8. The Creature - To me this is the weakest song on the album. I wouldn't say it's weak to the point of thinking it should have been dropped. However, it doesn't really fit the album very well. It is a repetition of the same two chords over and over again, and is very lyrically based. The entire mood feels out of place. Maybe this would have made a good download, or a b-side (haha... SGM putting out a single... that's a good one.) It also recycles a lot of the same duplet-to-triplet rhythm tricks that Dan used in "The Stain" and thus ends up feeling a little redundant. Still, it's not a bad song, and the lyrics are very good, probably it's biggest redeeming quality.

9. What Shall We Do Without Us? - I take back what I said about The Creature: THIS is the album's most disappointing song. Why? Because it contains 20 seconds of some of the albums most promising material, and they didn't do anything with it, they just turned it into this sort of transitonal track. I wish they would have developed this into a real song, because both parts of it are pretty strong. Maybe they'll do something more with it live. I hope so, because I'd hate to see such a good moment of music be confined to just this one little clip.

10. Babydoctor - Probably the defining track of the album in mood and concept. Extremely disturbing and creepy and I love every second of it. This may be my favorite track on the album. Or maybe not, there's some heavy competition on this album for that position. Just the same, it's a great track. Some details were ommitted from the live version to this version, and I'm not sure if it's better off this way or the old way. However, if you like the old version better, Amazon DOES sell a Live album with it on it. For all intents and purposes, this song is the end of the album. Cockroach is sort of a bonus after all the static has settled down at the end of the album.

11. Cockroach - Hilarious but also meaningful lyrics. Weak music, but then I guess the focus isn't really the music here. Interesting way to end the album, and when you're not in the mood for it, you can just end it after Babydoctor which raps it up just fine.

12. [Untitled] - Perhaps an attempt to immitate the ambient after-math mood that "Sunflower" creates on Grand Opening and Closing? Probably not. This is terribly strange and self-indulgant and contains no hint of anything resembling music or lyrics. This is why it went unnamed and was put at the end, I presume. The best part of this is towards the end, you can hear the band members trying to make bird and/or insect calls over a recording of birds chirping and whatnot... VERY funny. This actually for some odd reason seems to fit the album fine at the end.

Well there's the album in my estimation for you all to use however you choose. I suggest you buy it now if you enjoy anything intense and stimulating, lyrically OR musically.

That is all.