Track Listing
1. What's the big deal? 2. Lucky the donkey 3. Big pink dress 4. Do the hustle 5. Good Friday 6. Baker's dozen 7. Abort mission 8. Corpse rotting in hell 9. Lipstick 10. When hell freezes over 11. S.D.F.B. 12. What if? 13. Perfect world 14. Gold 15. Musical monkey Year: 1997 Label: NIT - Official Site |
Guttermouth - 'Musical monkey' - By B. McCann
The Punk-rocksters from the states bring us their fourth album. Being true punk rockers their music is short, aggressive and loud. Bad Religion are a prime example of a similar band to Guttermouth. I expect Guttermouth got their influences from then. The first song on this extremely controversial album is What�s The Big Deal. Right from the start you get what you expect, a roaring drum beat with amazingly fast guitar riffs and the singer practically talking his way through the song. I wouldn�t call it a song, more of a story to music. With an abrupt end Lucky The Donkey starts with a single guitar joined by another then the drums. The song is much faster than the previous one. An immensely speedy solo soon joins leaving you dazzled about what�s going on. The drummer�s arms must have been limp after recording this one because the drums are just pelting out beats as fast as possible. Big Pink Dress starts of with a single guitar then out of the blue comes both distorted guitars at once blowing you away. The guitar riffs have a kind of swing rhythm and the drummer doesn�t have to work as hard as in Lucky The Donkey. This is a great song as there�s a variety in tempo and rhythm. At first the rhythm is swingy and the speed average, then is jumps into a speedy loud second section with the band singing �drill my a*s� and Mark making up lines and singing them in a silly voice. If you have a chance to listen to the lyrics you can hear that they are quite funny as with the rest of the words on the album. Do The Hustle is a slow song compared to the others. Starting with a main riff then small fills in between. This goes on for about half a minute then the words �hey, how did everyone get in my room,� which made me laugh for quite a while as that was one of most funniest things I had every heard on an album. After that theres a complete change in everything. Faster and more aggressive the guitars and drums are pelting out everything they�ve got with Mark swearing randomly. Near the end of the song there�s another change, then it stops completely and bursts in again with Mark shouting �cum guzzling fruit cakes� and the rest of the band singing �roller, wonderland� in unison. Stopping abruptly someone yells �YOU STUPID ROLLERSKATER, GET THE F*CK OUTTA THE WAY� and the sound of a car screeching and crashing, which makes ya kinda chuckle as it�s a pretty funny ending to a strange song. Good Friday I don�t thing was necessary as it�s a bit crap apart from the guitars. As its only a minute long you don�t really need to endure that much of it. Bakers Dozen has a boring intro then when it starts to speed up you know something goods going to come of it. I did expect a bit more as the same riff was repeated over and over which got a bit tiring. Although the end is quite good the song lacks organization. Abort Mission is one of my favourite songs. A depressing bass intro then a cheeky guitar pull off/hammer on riff leads into the punky interior, fast and aggressive like the other ones the guitarists have to work overtime on this one. Then it stops all of a sudden and a cute repeating solo works its way in gradually getting more and more distorted leading up to something big then boom! It speeds up and there are some great riffs here to listen to. The end is back to speedy punk then a slide down with a giggle from Mark at the end. Corpse Rotting In Hell is weird sounding and meant to be�hellish, I didn�t enjoy it but I don�t think you were supposed to. There�s lots of random riffs and beats so it doesn�t really add together to form a song. Lipstick is still my favourite song on Musical Monkey. The intro, with a great drum beat and then joined by both guitars slamming out a repeating four chord riff. Mark then joins in cussing his mum and threatening to throw her in jail. About half way through the first verse everything speeds up and the guitars become quick with no gaps between chords. A solo follows with the main riff, which sounds great together. The chorus is somewhat a crowd chanter/head nodder. Then it all stops and the fast beat of the drum with a clean guitar and another great solo. After this it jumps back into mega-distortion and then back into the chorus! Phew. Then there�s outro of the song with everything speeding up for a finale. When Hell Freezes Over is another fast punky song. At exactly 0:30 it stops and the rhythm changes completely which I didn�t think sounded right. After a bit of weird singing it jumps back into the main theme with some palm muting then a strange scream at the end from mark. I didn�t really enjoy this song as I didn�t know what the hell was going on. S.D.F.B is another traditional punk rock song with loads of sliding and palm muting. There�s also a strange chorus of �stay away from me, stay, away, from, me� after a minute and a half of this, comes a great solo which sounds like it should belong in an Iron Maiden song, not a punk one. What If? Is practically a story put to music. The intro is funkypunk with the guitars changing their rhythm every so often. Whilst this is going the story of The Doors recruiting a new singer. This song is extremely hard to describe. Putting it simply it�s a p*ss take with some guy that cant sing and the producer calling him a jackass and telling the new singer to get the hell out. Its quite funny if you can keep up as there�s about 3 things going on at once. Perfect World is back to punk rock with Mark describing his perfect world. It is quite a calm song compared to the other songs with the lead singer (Mark) showing us his great singing for once. Good solos and riffs but still quite average. Gold explodes in with steaming drums and racy guitars even though I like the riffs and beats I don�t particularly favour the song that much. Musical Monkey jumps in with a strange drum beat at the beginning and then some fast guitars and singing. About half way through the first verse the drummer starts messing about on his drums and you can hear applauds in the backround. The song completely changes and it starts to mess with your head, about 10 things going on at once. Once you�ve been able to figure this out there�s another �Iron Maiden� solo which acts as an outro aswell. You can hear laughter at the end. I honestly didn�t know what the hell was going on in this song. If you thought When Hell Freezes Over was confusing, wait till you hear this! Over all I thought this was a brilliant effort from Guttermouth. It starts off fantastic but starts to get a bit rushed towards the end. However it makes up for these poor marks with the other incredibly imaginative songs on it. Mustn�t be missed. Traditional Punk Rock at its best. Metal Obsessive Grade: 100% |