These guys sure are serious about being angry. This is the kind of fist-pumping, acid-tipped rock that makes you wonder what it is like to live in Germany or Russia, where (as television has taught us) even the most mundane sentences are delivered in fiery exclamations. The content of this album from the band that carries the name of its lead singer is all about hell-raising, and sex, and eating bullets for breakfast...you know, the usual.
One thing I've never understood about this brand of rock is how the fans manage to fit so much meaning into what boils down to songs that are mostly composed of the same chorus line repeated in various states of angry yelling. I do have to appreciate the call to simplicity though. Why spend eons going through a thesaurus in order to create some hoity-toity obtuse definition of love and devotion when you can get it all across with the simplest of common phrases. For instance, to quote from the song "Invisible," "I'll crash my car just for you, I'll burn my house down just for you, I'll rip my nuts off just for you, I'll match my credit cards/" It's easy to look down at this stuff as inane, I suppose, but there is something very real about this kind of matter-of-fact immaturity. I mean, most of us know a person who speaks like this or have said something that amounts to it in conversation.
If the apocalyptic vision of strip-mall culture, violent relationships, and all-encompassing bitterness are your thing, then by all means partake of the feast. This might just be the revolutionary anthems of the enfranchised and possessed, but still disenchanted middle-class youth. All those people who watched "Fight Club" and liked to imagine there was some solidarity between them and the working, blue-collar tough-guy philosophies depicted in the film. It's just too light to resonate any deeper than that, but the same could be argued of AC/DC so at least they're in good company.
Alexander Rogers
Sleep Is the Enemy
These guys sure are serious about being angry. This is the kind of fist-pumping, acid-tipped rock that makes you wonder what it is like to live in Germany or Russia, where (as television has taught us) even the most mundane sentences are delivered in fiery exclamations. The content of this album from the band that carries the name of its lead singer is all about hell-raising, and sex, and eating bullets for breakfast...you know, the usual.
One thing I've never understood about this brand of rock is how the fans manage to fit so much meaning into what boils down to songs that are mostly composed of the same chorus line repeated in various states of angry yelling. I do have to appreciate the call to simplicity though. Why spend eons going through a thesaurus in order to create some hoity-toity obtuse definition of love and devotion when you can get it all across with the simplest of common phrases. For instance, to quote from the song "Invisible," "I'll crash my car just for you, I'll burn my house down just for you, I'll rip my nuts off just for you, I'll match my credit cards/" It's easy to look down at this stuff as inane, I suppose, but there is something very real about this kind of matter-of-fact immaturity. I mean, most of us know a person who speaks like this or have said something that amounts to it in conversation.
If the apocalyptic vision of strip-mall culture, violent relationships, and all-encompassing bitterness are your thing, then by all means partake of the feast. This might just be the revolutionary anthems of the enfranchised and possessed, but still disenchanted middle-class youth. All those people who watched "Fight Club" and liked to imagine there was some solidarity between them and the working, blue-collar tough-guy philosophies depicted in the film. It's just too light to resonate any deeper than that, but the same could be argued of AC/DC so at least they're in good company.
