Customer Reviews

Unsustainable Lifestyle

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4 star:		(2)
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After two very striking EPs made over the last few years, Washington, DC's Beauty Pill's first full-length album is worth the wait. Led by singer-songwriter-producer Chad Clark, formerly of the legendary but fleeting late-90s DC band Smart Went Crazy, Beauty Pill displays a variety of influences--Fugazi, The Beatles, Stereolab, The Clash--even as it carves out a sound its own.

The opening track of "The Unsustainable Lifestyle", entitled "Goodnight For Real", is like a rock song by Steve Reich, while songs like "Mule on the Train" and "Terrible Things" take the pulse of a paranoid post-9/11 America. The album's best moment, though, is "Won't You Be Mine", Clark's caustic treatise on bling-bling hip-hop style as the emblem of African American culture, performed like a twisted Tin Pan Alley jingle.

One recent review accused the album of being too cynical, and indeed it's not an album with a happy outlook. But when the lyrics and especially production are as smart and rich as they are on "The Unsustainable Lifestyle", it's clear cynicism is as valid an emotion as any other. While Beauty Pill's LP indeed lacks the cathartic fury of more punk-leaning Smart Went Crazy, this is a different band with a different agenda--and for that matter, one with more sonic dexterity and subtlety. "The Unsustainable Lifestyle" is an album that gets better with every listen.

This album was the most slept on album of the early part of this decade, when you consider how complex, intellectual, and beautiful it is. An earlier reviewer panned the lyrics, and my only response would be that such a reviewer is the most literally minded person to not 'read between the lines," as all the songs deliver a somewhat stinging jab to establishments, whether indie scene or racist hierarchy (the overlap therein), etc. To the pitchforkers who once inpugned the album for being cynical, how can anyone hear "terrible things" and conclude cynicism? "...terrible things, they are gonna happen, this record's over, so why not go outside and stop them?" is the last missive of the album. I think of Gramsci's line, "Pessimism of the intellect, Optimism of the will," when I hear this record. Most reviewers were not smart enough to value it when it was released, and the band makes no effort to distract 'consumers' from atrocity. It is difficult, because it is an indictment, from the musicians, to themselves, and to all of us.

this was my favorite release of 2004. i've been a huge fan of chad clark's work since smart went crazy's con art. this is nowhere near that album, but this is definitely formidable. i had a chance to see this band play live and they were amazing. the drumming is what really stands out. ryan nelson (from the most secret method) seems to just rock out on every song.

You have all these indie bands (Pinback, Arcade Fire) out now making noise and a bunch of major label flavor of the months (Franz, Killers, Bravery) polluting the airwaves and none of them have a CD of songs as strong or as diverse as The Beauty Pill.

Each song has style and character when upon first listen. The Beauty Bill doesn't follow a structured song formula as so much as they take your traditional song structures and abuse them until it does what they want the song to do. The craft that went into this album is not the work of mere mortal musicians. The Unsustainable Lifestyle is the work of musicians who truly understand what an album can and should be... its own world.

This is not for those who like sugar coated music.

I was part of an underground rock radio station for a while and although I didn't like most of the music played, this was the band that made my entire experience worth while. I love this CD so much and absolutely had to find it somewhere. I am so glad that I did. I recommend it to anyone, it is my favorite CD of all time.

It's weird that this album was recorded between 2002 and 2003 because it sounds more like an indi group from around 1990-92 think Sugercubes, early Bjork, Wedding Present or even just a John Peel show and you get the idea. I am not saying that is a bad thing just that it sounds a little out of time also the lyrics are not the greatest in the world and drift towards the meaningless (something which I found common in indie music at the time and hated)

Still, if you are looking for something different today then this is it.