One of the stranger bands ever to cross my path, this is apparently a one-man side-project of more traditional metal that seems...well...'fuked up' isn't quite the phrasing, but imagine some wacky troll crawled out of a Primus video and danced an evil black metal jig in a straightjacket with that weird "band-suit" thing (the one with a bass drum, trumpet, cymbals, guitar, harmonica, etc. all strapped to his body) that Dick Van Dyke wears in Merry Poppins, and you're closer. Maybe if Mortiis sat down and realized he was a goofy-arsed silly freak who belongs on a circus stage and made sillier but still somehow metal music, this might be what came out his evil bunghole.
So what is this? The songs are short, they are sometimes metal for large portions and then all of a sudden a funk or jazz or easy listening or who knows what riff will pop out of nowhere, only to never return. In fact, these aren't even songs as much as collages of riffs. The thing that makes this more interesting than some 'ha ha we're a silly band making fun of black metal' (ever heard Thoth?) band, is that the black metal, grind, thrash, and death metal riffs here are good. The black metal riffs are good enough to make me want to get a whole CD of this kind of black metal, which reminds me of a bizarre mix of 'true' bands like Darkthrone and Burzum, and really 'not true' ones like Dimmu Borgir or Katatonia.
I hope this band (or guy or whatever) keeps polishing the material and gets signed. If the cdr was mastered a little better (the recording is good and clear but obviously raw) it could be very good. More importantly, it could be something actually different.
My first initial reaction to sitting though this album = "...interesting". Who would have thought you could hear Tetris music, metal riffs, classical symphony, and trippy keyboards in the same song? Blackish grind metal is inserted within the experimental easy listening, funk, movie soundtrack, jazz, classical, and soundclips. It's like John Zorn, Estradasphere, Diabolical Masquerade, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Primus, Ephel Duath, Emperor, and Gigantic Brain all tossed up in a salad. The music will probably be deemed too wacky for conventional metal fans. I'm one of those music freaks that likes to find obscure stuff like Maudin of the Well, Kekal, and Mithras so I was very satisfied with this CD-R copy I bought off Organ Grinder himself, Blitzer. Very unpredictable, often times silly. The whole album is pretty much an artistic joke, kind of like those odd avant-garde bands that sound like they're just playing around with sound. Each style of music gets it's own time to shine throughout each track. I find it funny when you got dark symphonics going on and then it takes a complete 360 degree turn into something you wouldn't expect, like a 70's film soundtrack. This is stuff for true appreciators of bizzare music that leaves casual music listeners scratching their heads and saying "huh?". I wished there was more metal fused with the music though. Also wished there was some more growls thrown in for good measure. But other than that, it's a nice fun exploration of the music world. So if you get bored by a lot of formulated metal or music bands in general for that matter, check out this thing.
