On Vacation

Robot Ate Me | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 22, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: 5 Rue Christine
• ASIN: B0007NMK6W
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,741 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It's my world, even if I'm insane.", May 20, 2005

By 

ATwilightShadow (Bloomington, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Vacation (Audio CD)

The Robot Ate Me's "On Vacation" is one of the best albums I've had the pleasure of hearing. Its eclectic, bizarre, yet overall "happy" feel leaves one hungry for more, inspiring multiple listens. The music on this Holocaust-themed album is delicate and intricate, sometimes sounding like early 1900's era work coming out of a phonograph. What makes this album so wonderfully strange, though, is that it manages to take lyrics of particularly serious and somewhat sinister nature and present them in a way which is completely accessible and catchy. To find myself happily singing along with the album and singing the words "How many does it take to be a slaughter? I can't use the word genocide, because I went to the convention, I didn't read what I signed" ("Oh No! Oh My! (1994)") or "I kill better when I drink Pepsi" ("You Don't Fill Me Up the Same") is always a somewhat surreal experience. Overall, this album is brilliant, and I can't recommend it enough.

However, I have only one problem with this album, and that's that it's stretched out on two discs rather than one. There's only about 42 minutes of actual material combining both of these discs, which is a bit annoying. It's not enough to present a major problem with listening, though...it kind of reminds one that some music is still best in vinyl form, being two, sometimes completely different sides.

5.0 out of 5 stars "the songs tend to speak for themselves", and I couldn't agree more., November 3, 2008

By 

David M. Madden "nonnon/dj_webern" (salt lake, utah United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Vacation (Audio CD)

If you take anything from this review, even if you never pick up this album, it should be the following lyric: "So Jesus and Hitler were in the backseat, trying to make out / their tongues were twisted and tied around their mouths."

Actually, that strange dichotomy serves as a blueprint for this double disc from Robot Ate Me mad hatter Ryland Bouchard. On Vacation is the marriage of sweet and acrid, good and evil, Barbie and Spawn and any other ironic pairings that make total sense.

The disc is split into two sections (conveniently divided between two discs): puzzling and organic. Part one is a mixture of samples and live instruments, portrayed as if you were listening to a World War I era radio broadcast while taking refuge in a bomb shelter. It is the soundtrack of a politician, finger on the button, living in a cave like some megalomaniacal Howard Hughes type. "Genocide Ball" layers decrepit big-band 78s and crowd cheers beneath Bouchard's breathy whisper: "Come put your shoes on, let's go out tonight / there's a Genocide Ball to attend." The irony is certainly not missed, as you can imagine that the masses that enjoyed the original sample were probably knee-deep in a depression, laughing to stave off their tears. You can almost hear our protagonist shaking his finger in the air while he dances a foxtrot. "Jesus and Hitler" continues in the same vein, displaying the same eerie backdrop under Japanese koto, an occasional bass synth and the aforementioned lyrics. "Crispy Christian Tea Time"... Imagine the excitement of seeing the ice cream man driving down your block, and getting your beloved orange-dream bar, only to find a rat's tail after eating half of it. The kitschy '50s radio jingle music and sugar sweet melody almost offsets Bouchard's lyrics ("and if you don't like my games, you should definitely just run away because otherwise you'll burn in flames / it's my world even if I'm insane.").

And then suddenly, as the discs change, we're transported away from death and despair, and find ourselves living it up on a tropical island. Part two follows The Robot Ate Me's 2002 release, They Ate Themselves in its choice of ensemble. It demonstrates a quest for fractured sounds and ideas created by acoustic instruments, dysfunctional engineering choices and journal-style lyrics. For example, this note could be scribbled on a flyer and put on under your windshield wiper: "Let's leave work early, flee from the city, run to the suburbs and pack our bags / (chorus) I think I forgot the suntan lotion, I think I forgot the film for the camera / but it's okay, there's a store down the street where I can buy almost anything that I'll ever need." The "band" incorporates parade-march rhythms, violin, accordion, banjo (the island of misfit instruments?) and acid squelches with this text to create a complete departure from the previous disc's sound; the only thing that ties them together is Bouchard's voice -- it never changes much as far as register or timbre are concerned, but that element is never annoying. "Oh No Oh My!" takes an otherwise standard guitar/vox ballad and flips it, reverses it and puts it in the style of Robot Ate Me...

Enough. It is impossible to understand a Robot Ate Me album from a written description. The band says that "the songs tend to speak for themselves", and I couldn't agree more.