Customer Reviews

Three Sisters

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

 

 

In 1988 I started DJing on a college radio station in Oregon, and was intrigued by a LOUD pink obnoxious album cover (back in the days before CDs, boys and girls!) in the rotation bin. It was AD's first album, Donut Comes Alive, and what I heard blew me away. From then on I made sure to get at least one Alice Donut song into each show, and they remained one of my very favorite bands for years. Sadly, after many energetic and creative albums, they disbanded eight years ago. I was totally bummed.

New Yorkers originally on Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacle label, they are now back, with the same members, and I am so So SO happy!! A little less profane than their youthful selves, frontman Tomas Antona and his compatriots are still full of energy, killer riffs, amazing lyrics and punk hearts, deriding consumerism and sentimentality. For instance "Wired": "When I die/When I go/Spread my ashes on an all ages show".

The disk also includes a video, the winner of a fan contest -- and let that guide you -- if a group still has an enthusiastic fan club eight years after they broke up, they must be musical geniuses, a term I don't bandy about lightly. Do yourself a favor: if you enjoy guitar and drums, if you like interesting lyrics, if you want to rock -- please give this underappreciated group a try.

This album was an unexpected success with me. I thought it might be an underwhelming comeback album. However, as I listened to "Mr. Pinkus" and the opening tune "Kiss Me" I came to appreciate that they had seemingly cherrypicked the better portions of their material and created strong, heavy rock tunes with a concommittant attention to their usual dark humor.

As a standout song, "Helsinki" is a dark stream-of-consciousness song that really sold the album for me. It's not easy to make "I've got a hole like a woman" sound both heavy and authentic at the same time. Not easy at all.

Altogether I gave it 4 stars simply because..although I applaud their dyi use of a mac, the production quality is strangely tinny at times, and the anachronistic fade out on the song "Cost" really bugs me everytime I hear it. Without the fade-out, I probably would've given this ingenious record a 5 star rating.

When the Donut dissolved with an overproduced whimper in 1995, no one expected them to quietly resurface almost a decade later with the most stripped down, focused album of their career. Flat out rocks.

This one takes me back...

come buy me!!! feel the real experience of real rockers, not thclones of today, stealing riffs,ideas looks,
You buy this album you will know who they are!!!!
The donut is alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rock and roll is dead. With a very few minor exceptions. One of them being Alice Donut. Smart, funny, political. These are a few adjectives I can unpack when describing one of the best bands ever. While everyone else is only interested in how much money they can make while grabbing the mic to tell me they'l die before thier sold[a little clash rip there], Alice were always about the simple communication of ideas. A rare commodity indeed. The people who get it will buy this cd and go to the shows while the rest will be sold the next big thing. So keep your Strokes, White Stripes, etc, ad nauseum, ad infinitim. I'll listen to some real music. Standout tracks include "She tells me things", "Problems", and "Helsinki". The overall theme seems to be America's obsession with consumerism and it's exportation of same. Especially by gunpoint. Inspirational verse, "Soon they'll become just like us and we'll teach them how to shop". How apropos as we begin our colonization of the middle east. New markets to open. Thanks Alice, for coming back. We need you now more then ever.