BABES IN TOYLAND: TO MOTHER (1991)
1) Catatonic; 2) Mad Pilot; 3)
Primus; 4) Laugh My Head Off; 5) Spit To See The Shine; 6) Ripe; 7) The Quiet
Room.
A 22-minute long EP here, worth a brief
separate review not only because it is almost as long as an early Beach Boys
album, but also because it is a relatively important «evolutionary step» from Spanking Machine to Fontanelle. The songs are allegedly all
outtakes from the Spanking Machine
sessions, but they were re-recorded in the wake of the Babes' joint European tour
with Sonic Youth, and some additional influence might be discernible — not a
very good influence, I'm afraid, but
one that guides the band into a denser jungle of subconscious libidinous
metaphors and into exploring distorted noise from an «artsy» standpoint rather
than just using it as a direct reflection of being pissed off.
Which is all right for Sonic Youth, I guess — these
guys started out with just such an agenda, and gradually got better and better
at it — but a little out of the league of Kat Bjelland and her assistants. Maybe
she can write lyrics that are on par with Sonic Youth (it doesn't take a rocket
scientist to master that style), but trying to put a «depth-and-subtlety»
sheen over the one and only thing that Babes In Toyland do real good — waging
post-pubescent hysteria — is an inadequate decision, to say the least. Particularly
if it translates into the presence of boring arpeggiated instrumentals (ʽThe
Quiet Roomʼ, sounding like a mediocre San Franciscan band transplanted into the
1990s), or into letting the drummer girl take another abysmal lead vocal
(ʽPrimusʼ) even after the misfortune of ʽDoggʼ clearly showed the insanity of the
idea.
There are two songs here still firmly rooted in
the «old» style — loud, aggressive, demonic, hysterical. ʽMad Pilotʼ is
somewhat spoiled by excessive reverb on some of the vocals, but the main
brutal, simplistic riff makes up for it, and the overdubbed guitar noises actually
make sense, imitating an airplane out of control, a fairly suitable image for
the band. Even more «traditional» is ʽRipeʼ, with (almost) no overdubs, great screechy
vocals and total delirium all around.
On the other hand, ʽCatatonicʼ is already
erasing the distinctions between early Babes and early Hole, introducing elements
of «doom-and-gloom» that may not be totally healthy — in fact, let the virus
spread a bit and watch a normal person transform into a Lizard King. To look at
it from a different side, when the opening lines to your album go "I know
the sugar plum fairy / Her name is Mary / She's halfway inside my arm / Half
way does great harm", this is a notably different story from "Why do
you make me feel so bad? / Why do you bother to act so sad?". And the
difference in the music is quite comparable as well — minor tonalities, somber
dirge moods, zombie atmospherics. I don't really
want this from Bjelland.
That said, this is only the beginning of the
change. Even ʽCatatonicʼ eventually picks up steam, and ʽLaugh My Head Offʼ
gallops along to a hilarious chorus (with echoes of Siouxsie & The Banshees
rather than Sonic Youth this time), so the only genuine turds on the EP are the
two tracks mentioned at the beginning — the major problem is the length, making
it a rather resource-ineffective proposition to go hunting for the EP.
Check "To Mother" (MP3) on Amazon
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