**1/2 Showbusiness GiantsLET'S HAVE A TALK WITH THE DEAD(Caroline)
D.O.A.'s
Ford Pier and
Nomeansno's
Tom Holliston have paired up to form
Showbusiness Giants,
with murky results. Sometimes they cross the cutesy
weirdness of
They Might Be Giants
with the darker, metaphorical oddities of
King Missile.
"The First Pygmy in Space" is low-fi jangle built around the
lyric "I know it's hard to absorb it, there's a midget up in orbit." It calls
to mind the inanities of the
Dead Milkmen,
but with "Vampire Hookers" the
Giants quickly digress into thrashy,
Fatima Mansions-like anarchy, and later,
back to a singsong
Elvis imitation on "Anything But Love." Over the course of
18 songs, the Giants cover the quirky spectrum in broad, amusing, sometimes
pretentious strokes -- punk merging with speed jazz and humor converging with
Black Flag's
guitar riffs. In the end, though, they've made more of a
performance-art piece than a rock album.
-- Randee Dawn Cohen
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