Review Summary: Pop music for the antisocial
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, JG Thirlwell is a musician who is perhaps best known for his work under the name of
Foetus (Also known as You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, and many other humorously messed up names). Under his Foetus moniker, Thirlwell has created some of the most complex, strange, thought provoking, scary, but most of all,
fun music from the past 30 years. His work as Foetus range from heart wrenching ballads that make you rethink your past decisions to goofy pop tracks that get stuck in your head all day. Soul sucking epics that make you think about social norms to noisy, experimental pieces that make you want to check your ears to make sure they’re not busted; to put it short, Foetus has practically done it
all. Hell, I would argue that JG Thirlwell is perhaps one of the best musicians of our time.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, in order for me to properly explain Foetus, I have to start at the beginning:
Deaf.
Early Foetus is somewhat hard to describe; it’s essentially the bastard child of new wave pop and avant-garde music. It’s noisy, but with a sense of catchiness and playful humor. Now that I mention it,
Deaf is perhaps the goofiest Foetus album. Thirlwell’s performance has a spring to it, he sings to entertain, not to impress. Hell, at times he sounds like a drunk junkie singing karaoke, but that’s what gives the album its charm: listening to Thirlwell ramble on about jealousy, self-destruction, and antisocial behavior with a funk-influenced beats playing in the background makes it impossible for anyone to not crack a smile.
Perhaps the easiest way to describe JG’s performance here is with “Is That A Line”, a funk number that includes a ragtime-inspired piano interlude at the halfway mark. If that doesn’t make you want to listen to this album, nothing will, because this is the best track on the entire record. The tack starts off with a nice, happy piano melody that blissfully takes it time washing your head of any negative, bothersome thought… only to be completely destroyed by Thirlwell’s inane wails, which segues into an incredibly funky and danceable beat that plasters itself into your skull. Thirlwell’s performance is absolutely incredible on this track: his voice hits the right notes at the right times, and his wailing perfectly fits with the music. The lyrics are bizarre and incoherent, one moment JG talks about a pornography star he knows who’s “younger than him, but older than his mother”, next thing we know he reminds everyone that frozen food, in fact, does not grow on trees.
His silly persona is present for most of the album, in fact one of the few tracks that’s not overtly-weird would be “I Am Surrounded By Incompetence”. This is a mean spirited jingle that shows Thirlwell ranting and raving about his surroundings, complete with high-pitched synthesizers and thrashing guitar feedback. While it might not be the meanest you’ll ever hear, it’s definitely one of the rudest, lyrics such as
“They’re on the bus, they’re on TV, they’re calling me, they’re plaguing me” and
“I gave you advice, you gave me head lice” are not exactly the kind of thing you’d want to hear on a good day.
While it does contain some quality tracks, however, I would be lying if I said
Deaf didn’t had its fair share of skippable songs. The thing about JG at this point of time was that he was still finding his sound, meaning that there’s a lot of experimentation to be found on this record. The noise-collage “What Have You Been Doing?” is funny to listen to at first, but then gets really old,
really fast. Most tracks simply build up to absolutely nothing, such as “Why Can’t It Happen To Me”, and “Negative Energy” is a disappointing, bare-bone closer track that leads to nowhere, rather spending its time wandering around. The production is rather rough, also, leaving much to be desired.
Overall,
Deaf is an entertaining listen that demonstrates what JG Thirlwell can do with cheap synthesizers and an 8-track. Its silliness and poor production makes it somewhat of a black sheep album compared to his other works as Foetus, and the amount of useless tracks really bring down the rating. Its essentially pop music for the antisocial, which yields mixed results. Do listen with some caution.
