This review is written out of a certain bizarre sense of duty.
\nSee, I don’t think we should be missing any major artists here on
\nthe DV; I like to think that if someone has someone else as an
\ninfluence, we should have at least one review by that artist.
\nSomewhere. Somehow.<\/p>\n
The avant-garde cognoscenti know what the Residents are. They’ve
\ninfluenced a great deal of artists, some of whom you might have
\neven heard. But man oh man, they’re tough to review.<\/p>\n
See, the first thing I generally try to give in a review is
\ngenre, so you have some clue of what the hell I’m talking about.
\nThe Residents have no genre. Or, rather, they are a genre of their
\nown, recording for thirty years in the twilight-Dada world of Music
\nToo Weird To Be Quantified. Their music is a spinning Cuisinart of
\nstyles, instruments, time signatures, and vocal approaches. Think
\nCaptain Beefheart, think Zappa, then go even weirder. You either
\nget the Residents or you don’t, and it’s no fault of yours if you
\ndon’t. I think I do, but the jury’s still out; get back to me when
\nI’ve listened to them a bit more.<\/p>\n
There are a few things I can tell you.
\nDemons Dance Alone<\/i> is impeccably performed and produced. The
\nsound is clear, clean, and eminently listenable on its own merit.
\nIndividual instrumental highlights like the hi-hat cymbal on “The
\nWeatherman” and what I think is a bass saxophone on “Caring” are
\nbreathtakingly well-recorded. The same goes for the vocals;
\nalternately male and female, growling and yodeling, wistful and
\nominous, they’re all engineered and mixed wonderfully.<\/p>\n
The music, though, leaves me without adequate grasp of the
\nEnglish language to explain. There are moments that you can almost
\nget your brain around — “Ghost Child” seems to be about a lost and
\ndead child, “Betty’s Body” seems to be about pinup star Betty Page,
\nand “Honey Bear” is one of the funniest descriptions of a
\ndominant\/submissive sexual relationship I’ve ever heard. Then there
\nare the moments like “The Car Thief,” “Mickey Macaroni,” and “Make
\nMe Moo” that are so far out in the Fishbowl Of Surreality that I
\ncan only hold on to the kinkajou and surf along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Oddly enough, though, I like it. Damned if I can tell you why —
\nperhaps I merely lack the appropriate mental antibodies to fight
\nthe Residents’ infection — but I’m intrigued. I want more. Gods
\nhelp me.<\/p>\n
You may, too, find the Residents to be something worth checking
\nout. Darned if I know. But aren’t you just a little curious
\nnow?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6901],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37694","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-residents","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37694"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}