Search - Poptastic :: Teen-Pop-Noise Virus

It's Like Roto-Rooter for your Brain

Kevin Killian | San Francisco, CA United States | 04/29/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sounds like a serial suite of pop songs such as you might hear on a perfect LP (Pet Sounds) that have then been tampered with by aliens. Heavy fuzz feedback dragged across the track like a tagger walking along a freshly painted wall pressing his Molotow marker against the brick. "Are you Happy" reminds me of the old Rotary Connection LPs we used to buy for a nickel apiece at the old St. Vincent de Paul store on Mission, right down to the illegible patches where the multi-racial chorus sounded silenced, shut up by beer spilled across the vinyl. There's something different happening on every track, but oh how I wish that the producers of this record had included the "perfect" versions of each song, because no matter what is happening to them, the original beauty shines through the crazy turntabling and tweeterlingus that's making them walk funny. Liner notes claim that lyricist Chris Fitzpatrick "arranged/deranged" these numbers, but they retain a fascination with what pop can do that is appealing as anything I've heard in the last ten years, yes, that's you Danger Mouse."