Posted on January 9, 2010 - by Editor

Album Reviews: Jello Biafra, Chad Price, Reno Divorce

“The Audacity of Hype” reviewed by Ayisha Khan
“Simple Sweet Face” & “Tears Before Breakfast” reviewed by Steve

The Audacity Of Hype
Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School Of Medicine
Alternative Tentacles

When Jello hit the big 50, he had yet another musical epiphany. This was it. Incongruently yet another dejectedly underrated album, this time from the clasps of Jello’s own Alternative Tentacles, his latest venture is with the educational travelling circus that is The Guantanamo School of Medicine (originally the Axis Of Merry Evildoers). Following a spectacular 2009 tour across the UK, a visual feast of blood-spattered white coats, Jello wasted no time in proclaiming the ‘yes we can’ charm which his political mantric had to offer the disillusioned classes.

That’s sordid charm impersonated. The album opens ferociously with the ‘The Terror Of Tiny Town’; a vortexual spin on the two cowboys in a town which ‘ain’t big enough for the both of us’. And this is why the album is so great: it explores fresh avenues of thought on the contemporisation of the “holier than thou” world we inhabit, notably the regressing slave-master corporations and class wars of ‘Electronic Plantation’ and ‘New Feudalism’, and the brutality of a police state not so foreign outside California. Jello’s thread-picking further exposes the “give me convenience or give me death” conveyor belt consumerist’s agenda.

But it’s the music that makes this album exceptional. The discordant spine-tingling guitar distortions of Ralph Spight (Freak Accident, Victims Family, Hellworms) and Kimo Ball (Freak Accident, Carneyball Johnson and more) in ‘Electronic Plantation’ and ‘Clean As A Thistle’, ultimately sowing the “spy-music-on-meth” Dead Kennedys lethal trademark. Added to Jello’s yodelling, it offers a spin on the traditional racing riff hardcore slates on which the album builds itself.

Jello isn’t a crazy rabbing political Jesus as some would see it. The ringmaster is still song-writing and producing the kind of rhythms which only he could bring forth from a tattered Kennedys legacy post-legal ravages. The last couple of tracks bring to the table slowed-down funk experimental in ‘Pets Eat Their Master’ and ‘I Won‘t Give Up‘, the latter of which re-imagines the Obama post-election days (see album title) as “audacity to exploit hope for cash”. The only thing you’ll miss on this release is Jello’s stage clowning. An obligate listen.

Simple Sweet Face
Chad Price
Suburban Home Records

Chad Price offers his first solo effort which many will compare to his work with Drag The River rather than his ALL affiliation but this record sees Chad play with freedom and heartache, perhaps stemming from the period of its conception, Chad between bands and with time on his hands?

It’s a ten track collection of country/folk songs, although never too much of one over the other, that are incredibly honest, stripped down and a glimpse into the heart and soul of Chad doing what he loves best; playing his tunes ideally in a bar environment and letting his acoustic companion and painfully comforting voice do the talking.

Yes its campfire, get yourself cosy with a loved one, kind of music, but what’s wrong with that? “With Bleeding Wrists” is more up tempo and the images the lyrics compel means you are quickly transported from your bedroom to plain fields of solitude and country space.

The addition of the accordion (courtesy of Lucero’s Rick Steff), adds some layers but Chad’s understated acoustic sounds; soothing and soul baring, some credit perhaps to Chris Fogal with whom Chad recorded at Black in Bluhm Studios, inspires a melancholic and touching record.

Tears Before Breakfast
Reno divorce
I Scream Records

The fourth release and first since 2004 for the band, it’s a well produced mid-western sounding punk rock n roll album, for me hinting strongly at Social Distortions cowboy punk roots. The songs deal with themes of love and loss but are well structured; chorus smart and catchy, some heart string pulling numbers amongst the bunch (Has It Been Long Enough”) but offers a diverse set that lingers on humour and avoids soppiness. For the band that has its fair share of accolades in the States, there is a sense that the love forlorn songs also hinting at ironies and a bit of humour rather resentment with their driving harmonies and guitars adding pace to a record and band that hangs on the story telling lyrics and twangy-gruff vocals.