Thu 21 June 2001
Pop & Rock
Foetus, Easy Action, X-27
JG Thirlwell, he who is also known as
Foetus, was an innovator. His various works (most loosely
under the Foetus moniker, as well as Clint Ruin, Wiseblood) were, back
in the day, industrial compositions loaded with equal parts genre-smashing
vitriol and off-the-wall creativity. Foetus' various band names (Scraping
Foetus off the Wheel, You've Got Foetus on Your Breath, Foetus Under Glass)
were unparalleled in offensiveness. The problem is, he's still around.
Like the ancient last buffalo that reeks of incontinence, Foetus has been
making records through the nineties (all the aforementioned bands come
from the early to mid eighties). Thirlwell's most recent Foetus effort,
Flow (Thirsty
Ear), sounds, quite frankly, like pretty much every Foetus record ever
made. From the scattergun's worth of industrial crunching and mulching
to the stylistic shifts (string arrangements hedge on cool jazz next to
borderline metal crossing into industrial), to Thirlwell's raspy, threatening
voice, this is damn near the exact same noise he was making twenty years
ago. In fact, I even dug out my copy of Hole
(a Scraping Foetus off the Wheel effort) to make sure my memory didn't
deceive; indeed, it did not. It's as if Thirlwell has ignored what's
happened in music since 1988 and just rolled along with his sound, and
now it's just plain tired. As much as it pains me to say, methinks
someone has Foetus up his ass.
Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western.
Original
source: New City, June 21 2001,
By Dave Chamberlain
© New City 2001
23 Jun '01.