EL SCHLONG - THE BADDIES ARE COMING (Cd Review)

01.The Baddies Are Coming

02.Bungface

03.The Room

04.Composting

05.The Cow Jumped Over The Moon

06.Swing accident

07.Arthur R Nevilleson-Robertson-Brown

08.Harbour Cone

Jordan Tredray (Drums/Vocals)

Nick Baldwin (Bass/Fx/Vocals)

Leah Hinton (Guitar/Keyboards/Vocals)

Guest:

Dave Kempton (Trumpet)

It is difficult to place this New Zealand band in any one genre, having been based here for nearly two years and playing on the mainly metal scene, they have built up a cult following, yet they are pretty unique musically and go far beyond metal.

For want of a description i would suggest that if the Bonzo Dog Band were a black metal band then they might sound like this!

So throwing caution to the wind i hit play........
'The Baddies Are Coming' starts with a full on metal riff then goes into this nice happy tune, then more metal, its rhythmic and awesome, superb guitar playing and death metal vocal.

'Bungface' is fairly generic death metal, but with great breakdowns.

Some quite dark and disturbing lyrics accompany 'The Room', "There's no escape from this nightmare of boarded up windows" the music is outstanding, just brillianly composed and executed.

'Composting' is a song about, well, compost, it screams like a satanic metal song but its about gardening!

Were comic legend Spike Milligan to have written one of his funny poems about a cow and set it to avante garde rock then 'The Cow Jumped Over The Moon' would be the result.It has a gothic tone about it like an old Siouxie & Banshees track.

'Swing Accident' has Leah sounding like Angela Gossow over a brooding powerchord heavy song, but then of course we get a weird nice jazzy bit thrown in for good measure.

The next song is a long masterpiece about a man and his slippers !Nothing short of genius writing wise and musically this is a quintessential El Schlong song in that it has all the different musical elements in one place.

We come to the last song which i think is about climbing a hill or something like that.

Again such wonderful lyrics and great music and some remarkable trumpet playing.

Rating 10/10

For fans of : Primus, Mr Bungle, Frank Zappa, Isis, System Of A Down

STU