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Warrior Soul |
HANG
ON to yourself, brother, because this time we really are going to take a
rocket ride. And sister, don't switch out that light, not yet, it seems
there is something left to say after all.
And it goes like this: "I am the CHILD of the NEW GENERATION/the PSYCHOTIC product of TOTAL FRUSTRATION!' And when it does the guitars come crashing in broken jagged waves, the bass begins to pump like an opened artery and the drums pound with the menace of show giant footsteps chasing you through a dream, the voice and echo of a far-off scream, the distant lonely whistle of a passing train, the words, when you can pluck them outta the ice, strangulated, mocking, as nettled and cutting as barbed wire. 'I got no problems, man/I got no problems man/I got go problems, man/ I live in... TV LAND!/I'm an electronic image/Beamin' out to yoooo..' The song is "I See The Ruins, track one, Side One of "Last Decade Dead Century", the debut album from New York (performance) art rockers Warrior Soul. And like everything else on this exhilarating 12-track collection it is relentless and haunting, the band cracking like a whip, singer Kory Clarke driving everything along with the nervous elbow-jabbin' energy of the true obsessive. |
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| "Here's to
the LOSERS/The substance-ABUSERS/To the REJECTS/All the IMPERFECTS/'Coz
I think we're beautiful/Yes, I think we're beautiful... the most
beautiful hole/In the world."
That's from 'The Losers', the eerily compassionate face of Clarke's otherwise darkly glowering expression. He doesn't waste time on setting the scene; he just gets right down to business. Politics ('Super Power Dreamland', Blown Away In The USA) religion (One Minute Year, We Cry Out, Drugs (Trippin' On Ecstasy', Charlie's Out Of Prison'), sex, murder, love, hate, war, all the lullabies of the damned plus some voices-inside-my-head poetry straight from the back of the bus home to Babylon, the world and all it's black-hearted bullshit throwing up endless targets for Clarke's square-jawed admonishments and finger-pointing histrionics. On something like Blown Away In The USA, which Clarke immodestly described in a recent issue of KERRANG! as, "Probably the most important song this decade, about the (American) national debt and the Tokyo bond takeover of this country", you can almost see the loud-hailer in his hand... "Overseas/They love our dream/Keep us happy/With your little machines/We live on credit/We live on dope/There's no promises/When you're living' on hope.' And if that sounds dull, the band don't. It's a basic guitar (John Ricco), bass (Pete McClanahan) and drums (Former Killing Joke member Paul Ferguson, now replaced by Mark Evans) line-up, but it boasts an impressive combination of power and subtlety, adding exotic spashes of much-needed colour to Clarke's starkly drawn lines; they can pitch and they can catch and given half a chance they butt in on all the big works and railroad 'em like a freight train. While Clarke talks a good fight, it's the band who deliver all the best punches. Which is how it should be on all the best rock and roll records- and make no mistake, "Last Decade Dead Century' is one of the best rock and roll records you are going to hear all year. It's as unique, in it's own way, as the first Metallica album, the first Queensr˙che, the first King's X. D'ya know what I mean? It makes you feel all right/ clean like a well-oiled gun. And loaded. 'A lullaby/Makes you feel better/ The hatred outsides/Really doesn't/it really doesn't...matter"-Lullaby. Something heavy this way comes (man)... -MICK WALL |
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