On this, Fishbone\u2019s first album in three years marked the end of the line for the band as a popular act. Having lost two of their main songwriters, the band also lost their deal with Columbia and hooked up with producer Dallas Austin, best known for his work with TLC. He had launched a new record label and was eager to work with Fishbone. Signing the deal, the band went into the studio. Unfortunately, the band and Austin clashed, wanting to go in a less commercial style, the band persevered and they emerged with a very dark, complex record that did nothing to expand the band\u2019s fanbase.<\/p>\n
I remembered absolutely hating this album (save for two songs) the first time I heard it. Thankfully, I went back about four years later and it\u2019s not as terrible as I originally thought. The last half of the record still sucks; fortunately, other songs were a lot better the second time around.<\/p>\n
The first single, \u201cAlcoholic,\u201d was a song the band had worked on while still signed to Columbia but with Austin it took on a different path. It has very weak guitar from John Bigham, no horns, and the first signs that Angelo Moore\u2019s vocals aren\u2019t as strong as on previous records. It\u2019s an interesting track but for all the wrong reasons. There\u2019s also a lot of anger on the record on songs like \u201cRiot\u201d and \u201cMonkey Dick.\u201d \u201cRiot\u201d begins with Angelo screaming \u2018kill whitey!\u201d \u2013 so yeah, there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n
One of the major drawbacks of the record is the production. All throughout the disc, the production is very dense. This makes certain songs, such as the title track, sound like compressed shit. It also buries a lot of the instrumentation, which was the band\u2019s strongest attraction. Angelo Moore\u2019s vocals are also not up to par; as he was getting older, his voice reversed itself. He also discovered the theremin, which makes an unwanted and unnecessary appearance on several songs. John Bigham, now the sole guitarist, does an admirable job all throughout, though.<\/p>\n
Several songs last way longer than necessary, like the eight-minute \u201cIn The Cube,\u201d which should just be ignored, as well as the seven-minute \u201cSourpuss.\u201d It was songs like this that made hard to sell to a mainstream audience. While the energy is really heavy on several songs, the band is so sonically schizophrenic that it\u2019s really hard to enjoy the album on the whole. \u201cPsychologically Overcast\u201d has gotten better over time and isn\u2019t as forgettable as originally thought. \u201cMonkey Dick\u201d still sucks, plain and simple. Towards the end is where the record starts to dissolve and fall apart. Songs like \u201cPrenut\u201d and others just drain the energy of the record.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this record did even worse than its predecessor and drummer Fish and John Bigham were the next to leave. Go back and listen to the record and see if it\u2019s still as bad as you remember back in the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":32249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7112],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-44002","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fishbone","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44002","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44002"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44002"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}