Gift-wrapped in gold and stinking of mould and painfully addictive…
Cooked up for a feast by Consouling Sounds on 16 April 2016 and consumed by Jason Guest
Nope, never heard of ‘em either. Until now, obviously. But when a band with such a wonderful moniker drops in your inbox, it is inevitable that inquisition should take possession of one’s soul. Research reveals that this band has had two prior releases. With an, erm, “interesting” title, the first was an EP released in 2011 dubbed Womb Eater Wife Beater (listen here). Okay. We’ll come back to that. Perhaps. Maybe. We’ll see. The second release appeared in 2013 called – I especially like this title – Somewhere Over The Painbow (listen here). I assume, then, that you will concur that we’re dealing with a, ahem, “special” bunch of people when it comes to Belgium’s 30,000 Monkies. An unsettled band of merry men with a proclivity – a perversity? – for the twisted, what to make of their latest collection of oddities, I Ate Myself to Grow Twice as Big?
‘Melina’ the name: beautiful, sonorous, soft on the soul and gentle on the tongue. ‘Melina’ the song: abhorrent, abnormal and absurd. Contorted riffs and calamitous chords that penetrate the brain and infect it with madcap vocal harmonies and a tortured lead vocal. Okay, we’re going to have to tread carefully through this one. The psychedelic sludge continues to flow into ‘Coproliet’, a wall of noise collapses into a riff that builds and grows and then stops. Dead. A few gentle strums and then another wall collapses and the noise destroys. Nope, 30,000 Monkies don’t like music. They want to hurt it. Badly. And then taunt it while it writhes in agony, bleeding and moaning in a heap. And so they do, ‘Coccinelle’ sarcastically thumbing its nose at the mound of misery before it.
Hmm. Thus far, this is proving to be a rough ride. ‘Mountainesque II’ next. Now, the title may suggest vistas that only the bravest of climbers shall be privvy to once they reach those heavenly heights, but the song sounds more like what said climber will experience when their grip slips and they slide down the side of the mammoth mountain and hit every protrusion on the way to the bottom. Oh the ignominy! Never mind though, because we’re off to space – not the moon, not yet – in ‘Apollo 10’. Surely we can come to no harm there. Surely. The rockets ignite, the engines build to a roar, slowly we lift off and burn our way towards immortality. And the view from up here, just beyond the atmosphere that dooms you poor earthlings to imprisonment, is just breath-taking.
‘Mountainesque I’ (I wondered where that had gone) is disturbing. Wherever it is that our lunar liner has landed us is not a pleasant place. You want to go home? Fine by me. I’m staying. There is much pleasure in the horror that we are yet to encounter on this intrepid journey into the unknown. All we need now is ‘Juice’ to lubricate and rehydrate and we can sit and sup on the rewards of our endeavours through this contorted, distorted, distressing, compressing, comfortably numbing, nerve-shattering minefield of psychedelic doom with a view. Noisy, nauseating and noxious, I Ate Myself to Grow Twice as Big is stupid. Just plain stupid. And lovely. And messy. And sickening. And joyous. And gift-wrapped in gold and stinking of mould and painfully addictive. Lazies and pensive men, a toast! To the bitter end! Cheers!
9 out of 10
Track list:
- Melina
- Coproliet
- Coccinelle
- Mountainesque II
- Apollo 10
- Mountainesque II
- Juice
