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BLACK HELICOPTER
That Specific Function (Traktor 7)
Reviewed by Holly Day
Back when I was single, I used to have to warn my friends before we went out that I was some kind of magnet for insanity, that whatever guys would end up coming up and talking to me at the bar would either be drug or gun runners, fresh out of jail, or torture animals as a hobby. There's just something about me that makes people with horrible stories to tell want to come over to me and tell them, and keep telling them, until it's all off their chest.
If the backstory behind this album is true, then I suspect that the guys in Black Helicopter have the same problem. According to the press kit, these songs come from stories told them by some guy who used to hang out in the convenience store a couple of the band members worked in. There are stories about sexual molestation disguised as seduction, attempted murder, simplistic lectures on how and little glimpses of a horrible life that's just an overall waste.
Now, this isn't anything new so far as subject matter goes, and I'm not sure the band needed to distance themselves from the subject matter as much as they have with the disclaimer that these are someone else's story. What sets this album apart and makes it really truly wonderful is the way the lyrics are put together, with such carefully-placed wording that these are much more than straight transcriptions of some rambling lunatic. In fact, the lyrics are so well-placed and well-put that I found myself actually paying attention to them, which I don't really do anymore, unless it's because the lyrics are so annoying that they have to be mentioned.
Musically, this drags slow and depressing and angry and dark in all the right places, and then rocks out at harsh, minor-chord angles when necessary. Think Big Black and Killdozer and Brick Layer Cake and all those wonderful noisy angry bands of that ilk, and you've got the basic idea of what to expect. It's guitar-heavy, but not guitar-wanker music. It's really hard to believe that this album is out on such a tiny label, and that no one big has grabbed these guys for a well-deserved, introduction-to-the-world type of tour, because this album is just unbelievably good.
[Pick this up at garment-district.com.]
© 2004 - Holly Day