steering clear of the mainstream
since 2001

june 2010

review
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info opinion

Drexel

"Drexel, Ohio" CD

Donger Records

Genres: soulbilly, novelty

Sep 30 - Oct 6 2002

Oh, you've got to be kidding me. This isn't a serious release, is it? "Cosmic American Soulbilly Music for the Masses?" I think it's just a preacher-gone-crazy talking over a casio keyboard and some guitars. Seriously, this cover made me think "oh yes, neat-o Southern rockabilly!", but then came the music and all I could muster up was "SHOOT ME NOW."

Okay, I guess I'm being a bit unfair. I mean, this album is worth a few laughs, and the few melodies prevent it from being completely unlistenable, but this really sounds as if it would work best in a live bar-room context.

"Damn Dirty Apes," for example, comes off as being a joke, with an insanely silly voice spewing out insanely silly lyrics ("You damn dirty apes/Look at what you have done...I'm gonna get you, gonna get you") over an insanely silly bar-brawl-esque keyboard chord pattern. "Space Junkie Cowboy," which immediately follows the ape opus, forced a chuckle from me when I realized that the "organ" background was actually just a keyboard set on the "organ" setting. Even funnier is the fact that this "realization" only took me about four seconds (it really is that obvious).

All in all, I think I liked this a lot more than I initially thought I did. But that was more in a "it's fun to make fun of this" way. All in all, however, it would be irresponsible for me to recommend this to the public. If, however, soulbilly casiocore sounds like a good idea to you, give this a shot - heck, perhaps this could be really fun in a drunken context, kind of like Don Ho's "Tiny Bubbles."

60%

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 10 tracks; distributed by the band; released 2002]