This Robot Kills - The Over-The-Phone Lie Detector Test Live With Jesus Christ Live

RYAN:
So, someday I am going to get a record in that I do not like, and will do my 1st negative review. For now however, you are going to have to read yet another positive review.
Just hours after Chris returned from her stint spreading the Lotsofnoise Good Word on the OOPS tour, she gave me a call and dropped off a few pieces of goodness for me to review. Review item number one was the TRK record and number two was a new Eyesores...which I will get to later. Excited to hear them both, I decided to play the TRK record first based on no reasoning whatsoever. I took this mofo out of the sleeve and immediately realized 2 things. 1) the cover feels like the wimpiest coverstock I have ever held and 2) goddamn, I think this record is made out of the heaviest vinyl I have ever felt. I swear it is made on like 800 gram vinyl. This is great, because it lets me do more scratching on my turntable, wiki-wiki-wiki-wiki shut-up (random Newcleus reference) . This Lp is a mix of sorts...going from small random tidbits of drum machine mania to longer, full-length songs that have a great groove to them. That's right...I used the word groove. Not groove like Marvin Gaye, or like Deelite...but like the weirdo grooves that one might find on a Captain Beefheart record. In fact I found a lot of positive comparisons on this record to the likes of Captain Beefheart and Braniac and possibly even Quintron when he doesn't suck. TRK has the ability to do the art rock thing but manage to put a strangely pop-y beat or melody to it. For example you might hear a bunch of crashing and smashing and then it all combines to make a clunky groove. The vocals (and I would add lyrics) are one of the things that really got me going. Again, there is a ton of Tim from Braniac in here. Lots of nasal and melodic singing placed nice and clear in the mix. I was psyched to see that among the mostly unintelligible packaging there was a small section devoted to a make-shift lyrics sheet. This is good. These lyrics are clever and fun and totally worth reading along to the music. You have to love song titles and lyrics like The Lepricorn and Rhythmic Matter Smasher. In fact, I think I want to start a band and use Rhythmic Matter Smasher as the name it's so good. Um, yeah.

If you want this record...Corleone Records.

Review #2

by Cyrus Leddy

This band really loves really old and English punk rock. They love electronica and cheesy thumping house music too. I know this because on their self-titled album This Robot Kills try’s to go through every variation that these 2 distinct genres have to offer, which makes for an interesting if not fragmented album.

The songs on the album are spastic, and jump around spastically in a way that is both annoying and effective (and effective because it is annoying). They turn a very promising and fast and heavy drum and base number into eccentric new wave, which turns into bleeping and bloping, which turns into nothing. And then they do it all over again, like some kinda bored and neurotic housewife, forever fixing and arranging their sound, scrambling and skipping their beats. And then replacing the music that shouldn’t be there in the first place with empty space. And sometimes these little adventures don’t work; some of the more extended guitar fuzz seems more like aimless filler than any sort of musical idea. But I got the impression that TRK was experimenting with beats and noise for entertainments sake, and not out of any desire to create any kinda gorgeous pictorial music passage. And anyway, perfect music and perfect musical transitions are fine for the Beach Boys, but they’re kinda awful in this kind of punk. And for me, one of the charms of this band is that they let themselves be awkward and silly, and didn’t iron out all that could have been ironed. But if you are going to get any enjoyment out of this album, it is better to accept the fact that the music you are listening to is going change, and fast. And the groove you are starting to get into is going to die and be replaced.

But on a second listen, I started to see that TRK isn’t as flighty as I first thought and the sudden stops and starts they put their music through seem more like a conscious decision to stop the listeners enjoyment of their big ass beats. That they are fucking with their listeners and kidding around with the genres of music they are imitating. And once I realized that I didn’t have to take this band seriously, (that sounds bad but it’s not. It’s good) I found myself enjoying the album more. And it’s always good to hear a Providence band that isn’t raging and raging against half-imagined enemies, but knows what a goof music is and shows it. And some of this music, taken serious or not, genuinely slams, so you get the best of both worlds, don’t you. And you, the listener, because of the schizophrenic “all things to all people” nature of this band, are certain to find something on this album that you will like. Unless you like rap music. Because there isn’t any rap music on this album.