Brainiac

April 11 - 18, 1 9 9 6

*** Brainiac

HISSING PRIGS IN STATIC COUTURE

(Touch & Go)

This foursome of Dayton-based deviants probably didn't need Mama Deal's Pixies as a role model in their formative years. Ohio's musical gene pool has been swimming with bizarre mutant strains of post-rock cancer since the likes of Pere Ubu and Devo polluted the waters. In fact, if Brainiac learned anything from the Pixies legacy through working with Deal on last year's Internationale EP (Touch & Go), it was how to temper their Moog-twisted guitar madness with sturdy backbeats and a bassist that keeps his feet firmly planted in the almighty rock riff.

Don't expect to be enlightened by the spazzed-out ravings of Timmy Taylor -- songs like "Hot Seat Can't Sit Down" and "Kiss Me, U Jacked Up Jerk" are meant to tease rather than feed the cerebral cortex. But guitarist John Schmersal, bassist Juan Monasterio, and drummer Tyler Trent ensure that Brainiac emerge as a full-body experience, with their hyperkinetic barrage of quirks, quacks, blips, and beeps. And now, three discs into a promising career, they've figured out, with a little production help from Girls Against Boys mastermind Eli Janney, how to plant enough hooks and melodies in the frenetic mayhem to lure unsuspecting listeners into their weird and wonderful realm of the senseless.

-- Matt Ashare

(Brainiac headline the Middle East Friday, April 12.)