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While it is acknowledgeable that The Walrus appears
on the record at the start; and that can skew one’s
perception… Sir Paul McCartney’s guitarist
has some intriguingly similar chord progressions
to those of Wings (as well as much of the Walrus’s
solo material, understandably). He also has the
same rationalization of pop structures, which seems
a little biting. But then you do have to acknowledge
that Sir P. did write the rule book for much –
if not most – of pop music. It’s intriguing
though. I mean, he can write a mildly creepy, sort
of psychedelic track (incidentally the best on the
album, ‘Devil’s Spaceship’) that
has the just right guitar slide at the just
right time to drive the oddity home in a
just Beatles way…
Rusty Anderson does have some independent ventures that included
dance-pop instances which Paul hasn’t broached
(i.e., ‘Electric Trains’), but these
come across in a VERY 90’s way, save for
those few instances of uninspired surf-rock.
In any case, the major let-down (from an album
that I approached with no expectations) is that
the lyrics are generally quite unremarkable. He
dwells mostly on drifty emo pennings revolving
around self-considerate hindsight, with barely
and exception.
As mentioned, the one stand-out is the bizarrely
sexy Devil’s Spaceship (“I’m
on the devil’s spaceship/ I got some DNA/
It’d be a shame to waste it… I’ve
seen my future down your throat/ grab my balls
and hit the note/ that’s never there”)
After that, it drives quickly to a point with
Undressing Underwater
only appeals to an adult ear with the impressive
ways that Anderson has taken cues from his mentor.
The rest just sounds like shit 15 year old girls
would probably be kicking their feet together
to as they lay in bed yakking on the phone while
they should be doing their homework.
www.surfdog.com
-Jef Hoskins, September 2, 2005
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