Review Summary: Riddled with piss
For most of us, there is no such thing as a
Sexy Pee Story. I like it as a title though, because it conveys a lot of Cow’s appeal: a sort of sneering admission of obscenity, of crassness, of the questionably alluring qualities of piss. The title track, for example, is a two course meal of buffoons s******ing and tittering (with feedback accoutrement), followed by a knucklehead riff and a shout of ‘hey you, come here, i'll tell you my sexy pee story’. We're then dragged into a room by an overly eager storyteller who wants to enlighten us (of piss?) with a yell, with a holler, with an admission of urine’s eroticism. He drawls at us for a while and his sloppiness is sort of endearing, leaving us feeling better for being able to voluntarily lower ourselves so as to engage with the reprobates and their less-than-sanitary past times.
Noise rock bands like this sometimes remind me of the alternative comedians such as Stewart Lee and his muse Ted Chippington, comedians who have crafted routines and stage personas that revolve around openly (lovingly) mocking their audience, testing their limits for inane bull*** that sparkles because of its sneering admission of inanity. Cows' routine for instance goes something like 'this is clever, this is stupid, we’re aware this is stupid, listen to us play our instruments well, listen to us play them sloppily, the audience is stupid, the audience is pretentious, the audience is just smart enough to know we are sounding dumb on purpose', etc. Noise rock therefore often ends up sounding like the thinking mans ‘buttrock’ (if there can be such a thing), as the dumb riffs repeat ad infinitum because its funny and we're in on the joke, not because they're out of ideas.
'39 Lashes' is a standout cut because it comes from Jesus Christ Superstar, and instead of being a short little diddy as it is on stage, Cows stretch it out and abuse it, ramping it up with some appropriately hysterical screaming (39 is a lot of lashes) that's almost celebratory in the announcing of lashes and the grating obstinance of that one good riff i'm surprised the show had in its repertoire. 'Sugar Torch' will please fans of the more straightforward Jesus Lizard-esque approach, featuring some hard riffs and actual melody, southern drawl and scuzzy good-time-boy fun. The rest is all good if a bit safe for Cows, so just enjoy the hard-rocking snottiness, you sexy piss-ridden cowpokes (yeehaw?).
