mienakusuru

Fist in Your Mouth Music (self release)

Weird.

The cover letter with this 3-song CD demo says the band has had glowing spotlight reviews in The Northeast Performer and was named band of the month in both  GoGirls Music and Zine of the Times websites.  In addition, they've played throughout the East Coast and in such New York venues as Middle East, C.B.G.B.'s and The Linwood. "We are now looking for a label and expanding to play to more cities and towns at this time."

Okay... so what more do these folks need to do? What's it take nowadays to capture the attention of a record label?

Obviously, this sounds nothing like a demo. It sounds more like something I would get in the mail from Matador or SubPop... a polished, well-crafted mathrock opus in the finest tradition of Chavez or The Shipping News. Clean, fast, loud. (When people ask me what I think mathrock sounds like, I tell them to look up the later King Crimson stuff, and if they don't know what that is, then I tell them they probably won't like it, anyway.)

Track No. 1, Pieces, opens with vocalist Megan Glass sounding like a cross between PJ Harvey and Bjork while she plucks away at a Pixie-ish minor-key, sickly syncopated guitar line. Drummer Koven Smith plugs in Symbols and a flat kettle... sinister... Mason Wendell does his thing on bass. Gass then proceeds to spit out every bit of bile in her colon, centered around the phrase "I am not gonna shut up and take this." You get the drift. A very strong track that keeps you off-balance, like walking through a carnival fun-house with a very large knife.

Carbon, opens breezy with wavy guitars and Smith hitting a back-beat on a woodblock, a nice ride, until the chorus, where they go back to more driving algebra. This one seems to be lacking the necessary bottom for my tastes... Central lyric: "You will bleed into me/Carbon" I'm not sure what it means, but it's cool.

Abunai!, the final track, boasts a much more assaulting noise, with everyone hitting on the same two-note/onslaught, syncopated until your teeth rattle. It's plodding, like a drunk Godzilla looking for somewhere to throw-up. Meanwhile, Gass  brings the melody to another level by howling over the racket. It's exhausting.

I would buy a full-length CD from this band, if some label would wake-up and pay attention. Who knows what the hold-up is. Obviously they've sent this demo to everyone on the face of the earth or I wouldn't have received a copy. My theory (for what it's worth, nothing...) the labels don't find Blinder's sound commercial enough (no duh...), don't really understand what Blinder is trying to do (double-duh..), or are too busy looking for the next electronica/techno/urban crossover to care (mostly likely the case).

Here's hoping they get signed, and find their way to Omaha somehow. 

Contact info: Fist In Your Mouth Music, 1-800-883-0902 or fist@erols.com or binder.pair.com

(back to the Hype)

Copyright © 1999 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.