Review Summary: I'm Still In Love
I have some bad news that I guarantee will be the bane of any budding underground metal “scenester” (sigh) :The band “Crippling Alcoholism” has finally sold out. The sophomore LP by nursing’s sister project has more hooks and sing-along choruses than the new Lana Del Rey and less distortion than Billy Ray. If you told me that I’d be humming songs about prison at my dead end restaurant job to my coworkers, I would’ve thought you were on more percocet than the “Featherweight Kid”, but alas here I am with my testimony. “Selling out” while atrophying catchiness, usually alludes to minimalism and redundancy. While “With Love From A Padded Room” certainly goes down smoother, it begs the question: Did the band suffer from cutting their disjointed cinematic distortion for synth pads and slower pacing? If Crippling alcoholism were your average Walmart noise rock band, I’d imagine yes YET while more accessible, “With Love From A Padded Room” somehow works and canvases its own niche as one of the most unique and interesting records I’ve ever heard/”hummed”.
One of the first things one might notice about this record upon initial listen is the broad array of topics this 12 track LP (sometimes cheerfully) covers. From drug use, pornography, the mafia, satan, and killing people “Crippling Alcoholism” boasts a stylistic repertoire to match their ambitious urban aesthetics. From goth to synth pop to indie, each song has its distinct identity in the album’s overarching narrative leaving no two songs sounding the same. Much like their first album, “Padded Room” offers a vignette of suffering only this time confined behind the bars of a dilapidated prison where each of the inmates, in their various conditions, solemnly await their fates. While diversity and added instrumentation play to the album’s strengths, it also contributes to its only real flaw: sequencing. While I believe there are no BAD songs on this release, it is hard not to have favorites or to compare. Obvious highlight “Ottessa” sees the band maneuver from aggressive noise rock to self loathing synth pop almost seamlessly, finely peppered by Danny Sher’s chaotic drumming and vocalist Tony Castrato’s raspy inner monologues before a beautiful piano instrumental finish. The album’s closer “Mob Dad” is also of note, as it lengthily illustrates a criminal’s relationship with his own vulnerability leading to his imprisonment and death. Much like “Ottessa” or “Rough Sleepers” (the noisiest track on the album) “Mob Dad” successfully navigates through the band’s instrumental influences to tell a compelling story in stages. This is Crippling Alcoholism at their finest. Other songs on “Padded Room” elect for a more straightforward approach to varying degrees of appeal, although undoubtedly always unique. Songs like “Satan is The One”, “Sav”, “Templeton”, and “Lipstick With No Lips” are straight to the point goth pop heaters that pad the record into its more favorable sections. Crippling Alcoholism also seems to possess a Chat Pile-esque sense of humor/self awareness that permeates some of the album’s songs like “Liquid Jesus” or “Featherweight Kid”. Juxtaposed with the other songs and the album’s flow I have a harder time with these two tracks which is no fault of their own or any detractor from their uniqueness (after all I loved it when Chat Pile got silly (Grimace) or (Arby’s) ) It’s just at 12 songs, the record is long enough to lend itself to everyone playing favorites.
“With Love From A Padded Room” Is a behemoth ass pop record that’s really weird and despite its limited media coverage, is not a metal record at all or really any type of record. It’s catchy and messed up but most importantly extremely creative. It’s cool to have something that I can show my girlfriend who likes Hozier and any old fart who has the audacity to say there’s no good/unique music coming out these days.
