(Space Baby) www.spacebaby.net
Strange title. Guess it either stands for something or they weren't allowed to call it Cunt. Whatever that's really secondary to this aural battering ram which consists of either razorsharp rides thru barbed wire Fall / Birthday Party trash or torturous torch songs where Mr. Vocalist suddenly gets possessed by the ghost of Jim Morrison who compels him to christen songs in a similarly ludicrous fashion. See Angry Goats and Posthumous Climax, which also seems like a rejected Marilyn Manson title. And Jim also forces him to come out with such crap as the deep and meaningful "Every baby shall die someday" on Baby Must Die. Seems he paid attention in school then. Thankfully this doesn't come anywhere near sounding like the dark lord of drudgery that is Manson, even tho it is very industrial and has a shroud of gothness hanging over it. Not crushed velvet high drama or faux industrial metal but a harsh, barren soundscape. The sound is very arid and dry, has the Mary Chain's squall but harsher and less swaddled in reverb. No bad thing when you use Steve Albini's steel shredding guitar sound to such good effect as on mad, warped rockabilly stomps such as New Black Nativity, Sextourettes, Miss Albion and Nighthreat. The first two are all Mark E. Smith seemingly stream of consciousness coupled with Nick Cave's intensity....the slowburning Angry Goats is like Cave's mad preacher solo work to the uptempo Birthday Party rumble of the faster, heavier (and better) songs. This can be a gruelling album, and I aren't sure the slower ones work as well, tho it is worthy of a listen people. It can sit on it's own amongst friends like The Fall, Birthday Party, The Gun Club, Groop Dogdrill, Big Black and others as it does contain some damn fine noiseworks. And it's not garage schlock or nu-metal drivel. Praise the lord. Just go easy on the witchcraft. - Stu Gibson