BLEACHED TO STERILITY - Self-Titled Album by Bleachers

 

This one was recommended to me by a friend of mine, who I'll only refer to as H.F.

Bleachers (the bleachers? i dunno) have been around for years, but somehow I've never heard of them until now. This is their most recent release, having been put out a few months ago by Dirty Hit Records. I was interested in this because it apparently has a bit of a synthpop-ish direction. Wow! A modern synthpop album that isn't whatever the fuck Taylor Swift released recently* (i'm not covering that one ever)? Amazing!

* The irony of this came and bit me in the ass something fierce later on. You'll see.

Then I listened, and my excitement kind of dwindled.

Well, there's its first offense.

For the record, I do not hate this album; I am more so disappointed with it. I expected more. Let me explain my experience.

When I gave the first song, "I Am Right On Time" a listen, I could tell that right off the bat, it was very different for a song released in 2024. It felt fresh. It's synthpoppy, post-punk-y and almost krautrock-y - I hear hints of a motorik drum beat, and some of the guitar bits remind me of Neu! almost. 

I was impressed, honestly. I thought I was in for an incredible album. So I just kept listening, and I was met with songs such as "Modern Girl", which gives me a real intense Stones vibe that I really enjoy, and "Jesus Is Dead", which isn't quite as good, but still nice.

Unfortunately, I didn't care for "Me Before You", "Alma Mater", or "Isimo" very much because they felt like they were the same song.

Then, everything went downhill more and more, and by the time I was done, I felt really disappointed. 

My least favorite songs on the album are probably "Self Respect" and "Call Me After Midnight", where the modern poppiness is at its worst.

"We're Going To Know Each Other Forever" appears to have autotune in places, which I don't appreciate too much. Seriously, dude, you can sing; you don't need autotune.

"Ordinary Heaven" has more synthesizer sounds, but the way it's applied makes it feel more like synthwave than synthpop. Let me say this right now, FUCK SYNTHWAVE. It's an inaccurate representation and exaggeration of 80s music and aesthetics. Okay, with that out of the way, this song isn't great.

"The Waiter" features more autotuned vocals, on top of an irritatingly drony and generic pop instrumental, and is the very definition of ending on a low note. Not great at all.

This is a very 4/10 album. It starts great, but it doesn't take long for it to completely fall apart, and by the end it wasn't enjoyable at all. What started so fresh and so creative ended so sterile, uninspired, and forgettable. Come on, guys. You can do so much better than this. You've shown that you can, but you've fallen into the modern pop trap of making songs with the same old sound.

I think part of what doomed this album is the amount of songs on it: 14. It seriously didn't need this many. It's a quantity-over-quality problem that could've been avoided if they narrowed it down to the best tracks they had - Ultravox's 'Systems of Romance' comes to mind in this regard... yeah, okay, it's 10 songs, but they put a lot of care into selecting songs for it. 'Ha!-Ha!-Ha!' has 8 songs, too, and it's also excellent. 

My point is, you don't need many songs to have an album - you could have 5 or 6 or something. If you have only a few great ones to choose from, just put them on the album and release it - don't hastily make more songs for the sake of taking up space. The results will be disappointing.

* UPDATE: Upon further research on Jack Antonoff, the frontman, I discovered that he's one of Taylor Swift's producers, and frankly I don't know whether to be worried, or extremely worried by that fact.

Further Investigation into Pete Burns's Thievery... (FTF2 Review Extra)

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT SOMEWHERE BELOW LIES A RATHER UNPLEASANT IMAGE. SCROLLING DOWN IS NOT RECOMMENDED IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE A SMALL GLIMPSE OF A MAN'S PUBES. THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY WARNING.

Reader, remember when I brought up how suspiciously similar FTF2's cover art is to Blood On The Dance Floor's? Yeah, I know, it could be a complete coincidence, but really, after several 'complete coincidences', should I really let this one slide?

If you don't know what I mean, allow me to present you with two pieces of incredibly damning evidence of plagiarism, as well as other instances of wrongdoing from Pete Burns. Oh alright, maybe it's not 'damning', per se, but let me be hyperbolic in order to prove my point, you bellend.

Let's begin by looking at the cover for their first album, Sophisticated Boom Boom.

I hate to admit it, but Pete looked quite good in some pics from this era.

For others pics, though, well...

Of course, his pubes are far from the point of this post. What does SBB's cover rip off?

Lionheart by Kate Bush.

This is no obscure album cover he ripped off, either. Kate Bush is an artist held in high regard, and this album was certified platinum. I wouldn't be surprised if such choices were made to boost SBB's profile, cause that is a very Pete Burns-ish thing to do.

Not convinced yet? Here's another one, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know. (Nothing about Youthquake is on here because that one as far as I know is original. Naturally, with it being the best post-Hussey DOA album, I'm glad I don't have to rip it a new one over this issue. Unfortunately though, there's also nothing that points toward Nude's cover being ripped off, so I won't have the joy of verbally sodomizing it.)

It was at this point in their history that they were starting to fall off, and Pete's near-constant game of verbal bloodsports with Stock Aitken Waterman (who were trying to save him from his ineptitude as a songwriter might I add) during its recording wasn't helping. MBADTK isn't that bad of an album, mind you, but it has a lot of weak spots. It'd only get worse with Nude, though.

"Omg just get to the point, ur just a hater!", you Burns fans might be saying as you show your haughty friends on the DOA Facebook group how terrible of a person I am for daring to mock your #1 crush or something. Ask and I shall deliver!

Phantasmagoria by The Damned

If you have eyes, you can quite clearly see. Not just this suspicious resemblance, but in general.

I actually gave this one a quick listen, and I love it a lot. Thousands of times better than anything DOA has ever released, honestly, which is why MBADTK's cover art sickens me. Ripping off stuff from better artists to look cooler instead of displaying some actual dignity and originality is as dickless as one can get (I swear to god, what I'm saying now is probably going to be turned around and used against me when I get my Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark-inspired band going... oh well!).

With all that over and done with, I'd like to talk about something else that has irritated me about DOA.

I'm sure you're familiar with the song Sex Drive, right? No? Unsurprising. The track was written by a group of producers collectively known as Glam, along with Burns himself, who sang on the track. However, we're at a point in time where it's viewed almost entirely as a DOA song, and Glam has received less acknowledgement. I don't like that one bit, and on top of everything I just talked about, it's troubling in my opinion.

I'm gonna leave everything at that because that's all I've got for right now. I have tons of other gripes when it comes to Pete, but I'd rather not make that the primary focus of this blog.

DEAD OR ALIVE? ...DEAD - FAN THE FLAME PART TWO

Hmm...

(Yes, I know that the right album came out in 97, but given that FTF2 was only finished and released in 2021, I can't help but feel like this was done on purpose by the guys responsible for finishing it. It looks like shit, by the way. Was it too much to ask to give it a 1992 sort of vibe?)

I'm already sick of covering weird metal acts nobody's heard of, so for this one I would like to start by saying that Dead or Alive is, well, practically dead.

They were good until like, 1984, then Wayne Hussey jumped ship presumably because he couldn't bear to witness Pete Burns's face getting uglier, then they had one mega-hit in 1985 that rips off Luther Vandross, Little Nell, and Divine all at once because Burns was that kind of songwriter (no, being self aware does not excuse or shield you from criticism, you pillock), followed by a string of regular hits, then they stopped being tolerable altogether after Nude, Tim Lever and Mike Percy fucked off which complicated matters further, then Fan the Flame Part 1 came out and it did so badly that they shelved part 2, then Nukleopatra and Fragile happened, and at that point DOA was basically DOA in name only, and everything that made DOA good, or at least tolerable, was gone, never to return. 

Flash forward a few years, Pete had a short-lived comeback on Celebrity Big Brother, where he channeled his inner cunt so hard you'd swear he actually had one. Then a few more years after he fucked off again, he kicked the bucket, followed by Steve Coy doing the same two-ish years later, meaning that any chance of a good DOA release happening was completely out of the question.

Oh, alright, the demos of the early songs are quite nice, but the bulk of it has been rereleases of You Spin Me Round. For many years I've hated the song to such an insane degree, but then in 2020 I was like "Wow! This is the greatest song ever!" Come 2024, and I'm like "...I'm not quite sure what value I saw in this. Utter rubbish."

You know things are bad when they've run out of pics of him to use on these remixes and are now relying on AI to make more. 

Not that I think AI art is bad. This is, however.

One word of advice, reader, don't say any of what I just said to a... not even a Dead or Alive fan - Don't say it to a PETE BURNS FAN, because they will rip you a new asshole harder than I ripped Jozie Days one. Seriously. I found that out the hard way.

Yeah, I know, I'm waffling a bunch and putting off the review, because hoo boy, I've not been looking forward to covering this one.

In 2021, what existed of Fan the Flame Part 2 was retrieved from the archives, finished up, and released, after previously being recorded in 1992 and presumably shelved that same year. Believe me when I say this, this was not worth the wait. This is among the worst synthpop albums ever made... Still better than Fragile though, which has as much soul as infamous televangelist and degenerate Jim Bakker's popped hemorrhoid.

Its release was so utterly pitiful and lacking in fanfare that for a long while on its Wikipedia page, it had a message at the top saying 'The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music'. Let that sink in a moment, why don't you? No, that's not a joke. Go to its page and look at its edit history.

Alright. The surface scratching is over and done with. Now comes the hard part: Listening to the songs. A good chunk are 4+ minutes, with track 5 being 6 minutes. I also have not heard them since I first checked out the album when it came out, which should tell you a thing or two about how I felt about it. Before I rip these songs apart one by one, I would like to direct your attention to a sign of what's to come. Look at the titles of the songs.

Noticing a pattern here, i.e. the stupid and uncreative naming convention? Keep it in mind, cause the similarities between these eight songs (no, I'm not counting the two extended tracks) don't end there.

God have mercy.

Tonight... - Well, you can recognize the Roland drum machines. Feels like a generic 90s dance record, except worse because Pete's off-key yodeling is in it. Subject matter is typical of Dead or Alive. Not great, or even good, but tolerable.

U Were Meant 4 Me - This one became International Thing on Nukleopatra. Is it good? Not really. Chorus comes off as slightly predatory: "If I wanna make love to you, I should be able to!" ...Did he actually rhyme 'much' with 'much'? Actually, why should I be surprised? They're really keen on doing those piano-y chords. "only STAARS, SHINE SO BrIIiIIIiiiiiIIiIiIIght!" he belts out in a half-opera, half-yodel voice. Key changes near the end. Eh. 

Are U Ready 2 B Heartbroken - Pete didn't write this one, funnily enough. Boy, did he bastardize it to an insane degree. The original song is quite amazing, and to see it get botched in this manner by this ugly bastard is insulting. I also distinctly notice a stringy part resembling a part of Brand New Lover... y'know, a MUCH BETTER FUCKING SONG! Yeah, I'm done with this one. Moving on now.

Where Is The Love - For once, we get a song that doesn't sound like the previous three. Very TR-808/909 drum beat, except not as obnoxiously clappy. Same piano-y chord playing style, though. Agh.

I Don't Care About Your Heart - Well, your heart stopped, Pete. Sorry, that was too dark. Anyway, chord playing style is there again, but again we've got something unique... to the album, I mean. This is still a generic 90s pop record. It offers nothing new, nothing fresh, just nothing. It's one of those things that you'd hear on MTV in the 90s and go "Oh, wow." before forgetting it when the next song comes on; it just has that energy to it. This is the longest song on the album. Why? It could've made its point in only 3 or 4 minutes. It's not like a Kraftwerk song where they make every minute worth listening to in order to justify the long length. Most of the extra space in this song is taken up by shit.

I Want 2 B With U - Okay, we're back to sounding like the first three... but this manages to be even worse. The chorus is about as attractive as Pete is (NOT VERY), and the lyrics are very tired and generic. Again, this is a generic 90s pop record with the name of one of the biggest names of mid 1980s synthpop scribbled on it, which somehow makes it more important to some people. I swear to god, I've heard more timbral and lyrical variety out of Jozie Days. Fuck this song. It's the worst the album has to offer.

Hurt Me (Did U Have 2 Hurt Me) - OoOooOOOOoo! That's how the song starts. And that's about as good as it gets. Again, EVERYTHING SOUNDS THE FUCKING SAME. Same chord playing style, same bassline sound, same boring drum beat, same-ish tempo, same yodeling that'll give Takeo Ischi a run for his money, just the same. My head hurts.

The man Pete Burns wanted to be.

Extacy - Again, this isn't a Pete Burns-penned song, and that's what makes it good. This is the strongest song on the album. Pete doesn't fuck around with his voice, and there's some elements that give a shout out to the band's golden days, like the slap bass. I'm guessing this song is where all the effort went. Well done- oh, and you went ahead and ruined it by adding in a piece of lyrics from Hooked on Love. You PILLOCK.

Overall, this isn't great. It's not great as a 90s dance-y pop album, and it is absolutely horrible as a synthpop album. Little variety, obvious trend-following, lack of any uniqueness, so on and so forth. The reasons for its shelving are evident: It was certainly a low point for this band, and during the period in time it was made, Pete was losing his grip on his talent, and strengthening his grip on lip fillers. It's unfortunate to see.

However, Dead or Alive's influence on music cannot be denied. Many artists in Japan, and indeed other places, have been inspired by their later material. You see, this is what we in the trade call 'using shit as fertilizer to grow nicer things.' Gotta give it to you, DOA, you provided some good fertilizer. That won't save you from a good charbroiling, though.

Check it out if you so please, but just know you won't particularly enjoy a good chunk of it... Unless your standards are low, which in that case, you're a Pete Burns fan - you've found exactly the right album!

Would not recommend to the average listener at all.

3 botched plastic surgeries out of 10.

EVER HAVE ONE OF THOSE DAYS? - JOZIE DAYS

 “They remind me of early Black Flag, minus the talent and energy.”

-David St. John, Rob's father, on Jozie Days

"GO BAPHOMETS!" Oh dear...

With mental illness at an all-time high, there has been a heavy influx of musicians who either A. create songs that address mental health like they should, or B. create complete and utter sonic disasters the likes of the songs in the catalogue of Jozie Days, a fairly new group. Well, I assume it's a group, anyway. Reading their Bandcamp, one will find that they're apparently from North Carolina. Not like it matters; a band could hail from northernmost Scandinavia and still play bluegrass or country.

Jozie Days describe themselves, with straight faces, as an 'Industrial Metal Team possessed by Satan.' This is already a bad start, as they straight up tell you the kind of edgelords they are. They're not the cool kind of edgelords like emos or punks, they're straight up Satanist-wannabes. But, y'know, you can't judge a book by its cover... Except in this case, you can, because with any description that has 'possessed by Satan' at the end, you kind of already know what you're in for.

Regarding visual illustrations, I notice they've got this ugly Hatsune Miku lookalike as their sort of mascot, who I can only assume is the titular Jozie Days. As someone who likes a little bit of Vocaloid stuff, I disapprove of this resemblance. That aside, she too overflows with unnecessary edge. Vic Rattlehead she ain't.

Now that I'm done with all the unnecessary surface-scratching, I'm going to give my thoughts on their six songs and tell you exactly why I think they are all terrible and why you shouldn't give them or the people who made them the time of day.

Hellspawn - ...What the hell? (no pun intended) To start, the only lyrics are "Hellspawn" being repeated by what sounds like an edgy anime girl. That's it, really. There's something I hear that sounds like audio from some televangelist's tv program or whatever. Overall, it's kind of unpleasant on the ears, but it's only a little over a minute and a half. It only goes downhill from here, I'm afraid.

Pell's hawn! Pell's hawn! Who the hell is Pell, and whose spawn is the hawn? Oh, forget it!

White Jesus - Absolute assault on the ears. This was the first one I listened to when I discovered this group, and I didn't last even 30 seconds before switching back to listening to Ultravox (It was either "When You Walk Through Me" or "Some of Them"). The lyrics, which you can barely hear the singing of over all the garbage they've crammed into this track, are a generic and tired jab at Christianity, adding literally nothing to the conversation whatsoever. OKAY! I get it, singer bloke, you can scream real good, now shut up, you scruffy twat.

I'm sure so many others have said the exact same things being said here.

Mr. President - If there's one thing I do not like any kind of group doing no matter how much I like them, it's being blatantly and utterly partisan and political (Looking at you, Depeche Mode). I don't know why I say that now, because that's not really what they do here. In fact, this is far more unpleasant. Basic rundown of the lyrics is that some wacko, most likely a Dalek if the vocals are anything to go by, kidnaps the president or something and tortures him, and the government's out to get the creepy bastard, presumably because the Doctor's seemingly not up for the job. This singer is seriously a two-trick pony, it's either sing incredibly off-key in a weird way or scream like a banshee getting boinked by Freddy Krueger. On the subject of boinking, a little over halfway through the song, and there comes a guitar solo that sounds like a synthesizer having sex with an angle grinder.

I'm disappointed "EX-TER-MI-NATE" isn't part of the lyrics anywhere...

Dead Politicians - ...I spoke too soon, it would seem. Here, we have a deranged and utterly political fuckfest of a song taking a jab at religion once again, as well as politicians, the latter of whom they really want dead. Look, I don't care what your political views are, I have my own opinions, but angrily ranting about how much you want to murder politicians, etc. as dirty and scummy as they admittedly are, makes you look like a complete freak. Calling them 'pedophile elite' is also very tinfoil hat-y, which is not helped by the overall anti-government sentiments of this song. Like White Jesus when it comes to religion, this adds nothing new to the conversation regarding the state of politics. The inclusion of audio of R. Budd Dwyer's suicide is easily one of the edgiest choices made here.

I, frankly, don't even need to say more.

I Need to Break - Yeah, well how about I break your arm? Sorry, I got too ahead of myself. Screamy garbage like the other ones, harsh on the ears, uncreative, tryhardish lyrics, and guitar noises(?) I can only compare to actual flatulence with some creepy humming-like sound alongside it. This drags on and on and on, and every second of it is insufferable. So far, this is one of the weakest songs in their catalogue. If anything, it's most of the problems I have with their material rolled into one song!

See, I'm not joking here. This is the whole song. Okay, yeah, it's cropped, but the only other lyrics are "they'll fall apart" repeated over and over again.

Head-Man Fucker - Stupid title aside, the problems are about the same. I don't need to write them out one last time because you know damn well what they are already. I can't bear to write anymore about these fucking songs, so I'm going to leave it at that.

At this point, they've given up, and are now just tossing whatever words they pick out of their hat made of razor blades.

To conclude, I have little faith in Jozie Days. With them being what they are, haters of THE MAINSTREAM!(tm) I would assume, I'm not sure if their goal is widespread success in music, but I don't think they're worthy of even moderate success. Their songs are incredibly cookie cutter... that is, if said cookie cutters made extremely sharp and jagged shapes and were made of compressed dead weevils whose pieces break off and end up in the cookies. If you like getting earraped, this group might be for you... 

...Actually, let me rephrase that, if you like getting earraped, do yourself a favor and avoid songs by this group, and instead go down a dark alleyway and let a homeless man stick his dick in your ear. Might not be pleasant, but it won't rupture your eardrums the same way these songs do. 

If you're a normal person like me (me? normal? who the fuck am I kidding?), please just avoid this in general. 

Score: 0/10.

Also, reader, don't be a complete dickhead to these guys - no harassment. Be decent, please. They're likely already somewhat insulted by what I've said during this review; don't make it worse. Enough said.

FEEL THE MINDFLARE...

 

Those who live in and around the Lexington area are likely aware that the city has a prominent hardcore/metal-ish (dunno the right words for it, heh) music scene, with bands such as Fathers Gun, Raptured, Dismal, and so many more, including the subject of today's review.

Quite an impressive show from the amazing people of Mindflare at the Molotov Skateshop on December 3rd. With high energy and heavy timbre, I think they're destined to become giants in the local scene. They're good friends of mine, too.

Having jammed with them once or twice (I played a synthesizer... badly), I am familiar with songs such as 'Ruby' and 'KiSMET' (I have a good recording of that one with me doing a bassline on synth). I really enjoy their newer material, like 'Penumbra' and 'CrustPhunk', the latter shown above, despite not being that into heavy stuff - I myself am more of a synthpop/new wave guy, so I tend to prefer a strong melody over heavy guitar playing, which isn't to say I don't like that every now and again, seeing how I listen to the Sex Pistols at times.

Guitar (Elijah), bass (Andromeda), drums (Caleb), and vocals (Alex) are the structure of the band. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. I'm a lot worse on guitar than I am on synth, so naturally I'm rather jealous of Elijah's skills. Oh well. They also utilize a lot of effects pedals, as I noticed while jamming with them, which likely made my synth sound even worse because I was playing it dry. With only three instrumentalists and one vocalist, they can really make quite a racket. Both times I was with them, I had no ear protection in, which might have been a bad choice on my part; they had a full container of earplugs I could have used.

The only criticism I have, which is minor, is one regarding 'Ruby' (which I'm not sure was actually performed at Molotov, as I wasn't there). When I had jammed with them, the notes I heard (rough order in which I heard them, not counting octaves) were [E ... F# G F# E D]. However, what I hear in the performance at Girls Girls Girls Burritos shown below (the owners of that venue are dicks, by the way), is [G... A A# A G F]. Admittedly, this is a major nitpick on my part, but I personally don't like it that much when the key is it key? I'm rather incompetent at what I do so I don't know these things off the top of my head varies from performance to performance. Honestly, Mindflare's been my introduction to the whole scene, so what the hell do I know? ...yeah, I don't get out the house much.

Overall, they get a 10/10 from me. If you're in Lexington, Bowling Green, or somewhere else around those areas, and you have the opportunity to see Mindflare, don't pass it up. No, I'm not just saying it because they're my buddies. I mean it honestly. They're damn good at what they do.

Test Run, Perhaps.

I don't quite know what I'm doing, so I thought I'd might give it a test. 

 Hey, do you like it when some smug bastard you've never met talks about what he thinks is and isn't music? No? Well, you're on the wrong blog, because this is exactly that. 

 I'm Robin St. John. I kind of make music. I'm not good at it, yet I think I have a good idea of what good music is. I'm very old fashioned, so what I might say about today's music might not be the kindest. Of course, everything I say here is my own personal opinion, and therefore you shouldn't really take my word for anything. If you do anyway, that's on you, not me. I am no Anthony Fantano. In fact, I think that guy is an even bigger snob than I am! But eh, I'm getting off track here. 

 If anything I say in any of my posts ends up upsetting you in some way... well, first off, grow up. I just told you exactly what you're in for when you read this blog, and you have every right to go read something else. Anyway, if you so desire, you may send any and all complaints and/or death threats you may have to me via Email. I don't check my Email that often, so I likely won't see what you might send. Just don't ask me about my political viewpoints, and PLEASE do not send me pictures of your leathery old cock. Real basic stuff. 

 My first review is likely going to be released on Christmas Eve. If not, probably New Years Day. I'm usually quite busy, so I can't guarantee anything.