(623/1000)
"woo hoo!" "messa-ay-ay-juh"
Full House. What a show. Seriously. Remember that episode where Michelle was trying to get her cooking merit badge for that girl scouts group she belonged to? No? Well then you should watch more TBS, because the analogy between the episode I'm referring to and the Japanese cut of Boris' latest album Smile is solid.
In order to get her merit badge, Michelle has to cook something delicious that everyone can enjoy. It took her about four tries though before she cooked something that actually was any good though, and it had nothing to do with her cooking skills; it had to do with her choice of dishes she tried to make. See, Michelle kept taking foods she really liked and then would combine them, without any regard to how her favorites might taste when mixed together. This resulted in things like pickle popscicles, or tunafish sandwiches with hershey's syrup on them. Danny Tanner had to sit her down and explain that just because two things taste good on their own doesn't mean they're going to taste good together. Michelle then made an ILLicious bologna sandwich--hold the hershey's-- Joey made some Bullwinkle noises, Kimmy got a boyfriend, and the Tanner family lived happily ever after.
In Boris's latest effort, there is a lot of Michelle style cooking going on. The aim of course is to create a psychadelic masterpiece, why else would they be calling it Smile? Their strategy? Mash up every genre you can think of, be really loud, and use stereo panning ... a lot of stereo panning. When it works, the results can be satisfying. Tracks like "Next Saturn" place fiercely strummed and overly-distorted guitars in the background of the mix, keep a nice electric piano line at the front, and restrain the bad vocals. The track rolls along until a snare-fill brings us into a Smashing Pumpkins inspired breakdown. In this case, the track works alright.
Most of the time though, you end up with a pickle popsicle. "Flower Sun Rain" begins with a drone that recalls the bands earlier work on Feedbacker, but then shifts unexpectedly into a ho-hum Beach Boy's inspired strum and drum. "BUZZ-IN" combines baby noises, yelling, classic rock guitars, metal, sergeant pepper, a screaming ghost, hardcore, and the voice of god. Sounds kick ass, but then again so did half of Michelle's dishes.
So please, Boris, cut the crap: I know you know how to cook. Hell I'd even go as far as to say you're pretty decent chefs. So make me a masterpiece, not a master-piece-of-shit.
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