REVIEWS

A NICE BOX OF CHRISTMAS MEAT

"What-a-a-aaaat? Why has my 1980’s boom box tuned into Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Hits of Neveryear not yet imploded into a singularity of wah-wah pedals and turds??"

"Depressing and embarrassing digital garbage in, garbage out."

"After 72 hours, I'm still wiping up the vomit! This album is triple-strength ipecac."

"Well, I'm glad they have each other... and the goats, I guess?"

"Oh good lord, this is the dumbest thing ever."

Yes, after 14 years, the monkeys have returned. What horrors await within this musty tomb? Wry social commentary and biting satire? Virtuoso djembe and electric trumpet duets? Slightly off-key sea shanties? Colon-cleansing transcendental enlightenment? Or just dick jokes?

Take a wild guess.

Impending Doomp

On the eve of unfurling our masterstroke, we excavated this recording from Tonks Reverb, from that time she caught us on location in the desert for an interview. Tavvv is still searching for his blood.

Flawless Victoly

In a sure sign of the end times, all albums are now available in pristine lossless encoding, so you can savor every burp and burst of static as originally unintended.

By Unpopular Demand

We have some merch in the back, so...

Weenies Unite!

Our fans rise in unison against the meat packing industry's sponsorship of Weenie Roast.

When will they learn?

FARTS... IN... SPACE!!!

The longest post-production cycle ever is finally over. At last, we can reveal the answer to the age-old question:

If you fart in space, does it make a smell?

Yes. Yes it does.

These Losers Have Totally Sold Out

Last we heard from the self-proclaimed "braindead" Monkeys, they professed not to be "space rock." And yet here they are! With another ill-conceived "concept" album, IN SPACE! What gives? Certainly not me, if the noun in question is "a shit."

"Space Donut" is yet another mockery of music in a seemingly endless series of forgettable albums from this obscure "band" of losers. Do yourself a big favor and skip this one. After ten seconds, it's like being raped in the eardrums by burping troglodytes. After ten minutes, you'll wish deafness on the entire human population, if only to be spared from this trainwreck of an album.

Trumpets and bagpipes thrown into a cement mixer half-filled with injured sea lions would be more melodious than this garbage. My armpit is the London Philharmonic by comparison. If you took a loud burp, and slowed it down, and stretched it to last 74 minutes? It'd be this album, times a million. It's just bad, OK? Really, actually awful.

Particularly offensive are the tracks which tap into 1980's sub-culture, replaying ditties from Saturday morning cartoons or those jingles from TV commercials which you haven't thought about for years. Until these tracks jar the memories from the back of your under-brain, and then shit all over them with kazoos and car crashes. It's like they're raping my childhood, the goddamn monkeys.

-- Joanne Hatch, "MoodSwing", Oct 2008

WE'VE LOST OUR MINDS

Somewhere between the bathroom and total global domination we blacked out, but our marketing drones have attempted to fill the void by recycling our feces into a "single." Oh well, at least there is a nice bonus track.

Also, our simian cohorts have produced an embarrassingly faithful reenactment of the titular Creeping Banana track. Definitely drool-worthy.

WEENIE ROAST HITS THE STREETS

"The Braindead Monkeys totally lost me on this album. It hurts my ears, it hurts my soul. It make me the crazy. I want to hide in my box when they come on the radio. Why have they forsaken their loyal fans? Why do they punish us? Make the burnination end, please!"

"An ensemble band with a solid dance style, they feature several talented, yet nearly anonymous soloists."

"The BDM have violated all my sacred trust, with Weenie Roast. I have nightmares all the time now. What have they done?"

"it is totally better with L/R swapped. i dunno why. all the beats magically line up and everything."

"These Monkey people do not deserve to walk on American soil. They are against everything we hold dear. They mock our Judeo-Christian morals, they scoff at our laws, they terrorize our culture. When their tourwagon came into town, they threw feces in my general direction. I hate them with all of my blood. Now I yearn to kill them. Fuck you, Monkeys. You have pissed off the wrong slob."

"Things were much better ofter I remove the ears, yes? No more of the hellish noise-maken sound."

"I've been a U.S. Marine for 20 years. This new album made me wet my pants like a little girl."

"An eclectic mix of hip hop, thrash, and bad karaoke, this album stuck in my head like an inflamed brain parasite. I was humming 'Turnip Squat Panic' for weeks, even in my sleep."

THE BRAINDEAD MONKEYS: _WEENIE_ROAST_

0 out of 5 stars

Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed all turned in their gravely soils today as a certain fated CD entered my office, and was unwittingly placed into the stereo. Dogs barked. Planes crashed. Garbage men died. Dreams were crushed, junkies shot cops, the ground split asunder and demons rose to masturbate over everything sacred.

I never imagined that, one day, I'd become so shriveled and heartless, my soul filled with such absolute hatred, that I'd >ever< be able to award 0 stars to >anything< on this green earth. But now I rage like a fury scorned. I rage against men, I spit at God. Solid objects tremble and spin in my spectral presence. Those goddamn apes. I would award this band negative five stars, if only I could locate an antimatter pencil with which to draw the shapes.

One nervous breakdown and two hospitalizations (not mine) later, it occurs to my twat of an editor that this record review needs some more descriptors! Can I 'describe' the tracks without driving my bloody fingernails into these fucks I call my coworkers? If my job depends on it??

The high point of "Weenie Roast" are the jams; many long, ponderous tracks that tangibly dislodge brain cells, which later evacuate out your urethra. It is during these tracks that I hear the mourning of the dead, pushing against their heavy graven weights, begging for peace to return to this coil. Bugs and mice flee the room. Milk curdles, and fresh fruit liquifies. Glass warps and melts, right before my eyes, as does concrete.

It was during the playback of the "jams" that my hallucinations of raping unicorns subsided, and the ringing headaches (plural) did wane somewhat. That is why the jams are my favorite. Also this record features commercial sponsorship, which can only be a political tactic. The listener is forced to polarize with Communism; or Anarchy; anything to ensure this monstrous abomination will never be rivaled again. Burn all copies. Torture the apes with welding arcs. I feel my brain shrinking. Children are afraid of me. The flames are climbing the curtains now, it won't be long.

Some of this music is derived from video games, thus increasing the unsmart.

Can I sue?

-- Teivel Kohnstamm, "FreshSpin Monthly", Oct 2003

WHAT DEVIOUS MIND CONTROL IS THIS !UNUSUAL?

Against all odds, the BDM have managed to attract a SECOND fan, and not only has this obviously mentally handicapped individual so far eluded law enforcement, they also created a MUSIC VIDEO. Be afraid.

Okay well that clinches it, we really DO need to make a fifth album >:) Despite what the FCC said.

The Monkeys Unleash an Uncooked Sausage

It's one thing to tune in a commercial radio station and be shocked, horrified even, at what the slack-jawed, drooley adolescents of our nation will stoop to listen to.

But it's something else entirely to behold a group of five untalented anarchoid hacks wielding musical instruments with all the precision of an unmanned firehose, and watch as this "band" steals the hearts and minds of that last vestige of American intelligence, the underground music scene. That, my friends, is horror, pure and unadulterated.

The punks love them. The hipsters cherish them. Geeks, ravers, rivets, tweeks, clods, neo-rednecks, and even ho-bitches; They all horde the Braindead Monkeys' records, like dragons watching over sacred treasure. Bootlegs abound on the information superhighway. Clubs are packed beyond capacity whenever the Monkeys play live shows. The clamor is omnipresent, in and out of record stores: the Monkeys this, the Monkeys that, the Monkeys, the Monkeys.

Oh, how they clamor.

All I know is that this band makes me feel like a singular slack-jawed know-nothing, drowning in a sea of wastoids. I am the Marcel Proust novel set adrift in a barren hellscape of Robin Cook. It is not a good feeling.

I hereby declare my allegiance to the majority of music enthusiasts (the thinking ones, that is) who cannot stand any of the aptly-named Braindead Monkeys' goddamn fucking shit for one more minute. Supposedly a band with an "incredible sense of humor," the titillation factor on their new full-length record Blood Sausage is distressingly dry. To be succinct, it is nothing but a recycled attempt at cashing in on their (ill-deserved) fifteen seconds of fame (and three other full-length albums of disrespectful sonic torture, the type that would have Amnesty International in tears, if they only knew.)

See if you find the rest of this sentence humorous: Boners; Fatter boners; Track after track enshrouded in a thick blanket of burps. Sound familiar?

This music is not funny, nor is it enjoyable. It is a disgrace. Solid gold watches residing in anal cavities were never funny.

Some of their new compositions will sound vaguely familiar, and it should come as no surprise that plagiarism runs rampant in the world of Blood Sausage. In particular, "Hasu Deburu" and "Shuruken" are obviously bastardized Ramones covers, with inexplicable name changes. Do not be deceived.

One of the band members has apparently learned Danish, which is agonizingly strewn throughout every track. The implication seems to be that this music may just harbor a cryptic shred of intelligence, if one explores it deeply enough. Again, who do they think they're fooling?

At least the first track is coherent, and logical, and in a parallel universe where everything is perfect and wonderful, this is a premonition of genuine talent to come. But it's certainly not redemptive enough to warrant paying $13.99 for this colossal waste of time and effort. Go back to Monkey-land, losers.

-- Paul Rainier, "UltraSounder" webzine, vol. 8

*Creeping Banana*: The Controversy

*Creeping Banana* by The Braindead Monkeys

In the wake of tragedy, many people take time out to recover with artful, soothing music -- music that has meaning -- music that restores your soul. And that is why, in the recent tragedy, as I stood hip-deep in flaming ash just outside my Manhattan apartment, or what was left of it, I was glad that I had taken time to salvage my trusty Discman and the only two CDs I felt were capable of redeeming me from the shock I felt, as the twin towers collapsed and obliterated one thousand of my closest friends. As I knew would happen, a careful re-listening of the two CDs sublimated the tragedy. The twin towers missing from the skyline were transformed into indestructible twin towers in my soul. Their names were no longer WTC 1 and WTC 2 -- now they were called BDM *Moist & Meaty*, and BDM *Real Butter*.

These, as everyone knows, are the recordings that sparked a revolution in alternative music; or perhaps I should write, with one eye towards the Monkeys' artful postmodern irony, "sparked" "a" "revolution" "in" "alternative" -- sonic experience? -- "music." For the Braindead Monkeys are nothing if not brilliant redefiners of all musical genres -- in fact, their work challenges us to pause and redefine the fundamental *concept* of genre itself!

After two such stunning triumphs -- and in only a year! -- The Braindead Monkeys should have been satisfied. And they would have been, were they ordinary mortals. But *Creeping Banana* proves conclusively that the being of a Monkey transcends ordinary experience, just as our being transcends that of lowly bacteria.

Their first two works were complete soulmates to one another -- the thrusting, masculine, Moist, Meaty male; the yielding, soft, curvaceously genuine Real-ly slippery Butter-y female. As if it were possible, the Monkeys added yet a third soulmate last week. It is the Holy Spirit of Monkeyness. If one CD was male, and the next female, this one is the abstract act of reproduction, more noble and more complex than anything encountered before.

As expected, *Creeping Banana* completely reprises and transcends their previous works of genius. It is at the same time an intellectualization and embodiment of all the Monkeys have represented to us in -- has it been so short a time? -- a mere year and a half.

*Creeping Banana* enlightens us poor mortals as to the philosophy behind the Monkeys' work. They graciously spell it out in *Cough Drop Jam*, although, in *Fans Like You*, they allow that we have let them down. Unfortunately, they are too far over our heads.

Let's examine the opening of this moving and persuasive revelation of their philosophy. At the beginning of the *Cough Drop Jam*, one member intones the following words (I presume it is Skot, since in *Real Butter* he proclaimed his role as the lead singer):

All I need
Is another cough drop.
I am so *sick*
Of cough drops.

I interpret this to mean that the Monkeys have been explaining their philosophy to us for so long, without success, that they require cough drops to soothe their collective throat, so they can go on explaining. The last two lines indicate that not even the Monkeys' collective patience is infinite, and that it is wearing thin; but their frustration, like that of good parents, is directed away from us misguided children, and focused upon the cough drops which have coated the inside of their collective throat with a thick layer of mentholated syrup, causing them to choke on guttural words and avoid hard consonants.

Of course, I can't reveal their full philosophy here. Not only would I have a hard time putting it into words -- it is not the kind of thing which can be conveyed by quotations and examples -- but it would threaten the ultimate goal of any artist's work: total dissemination. I hope that every person in the world eventually discovers the great joy to be found in the Braindead Monkeys.

-- Pavel Zmiewsky
Reprinted by permission from "The Village Idiot: News and Reviews", October 15, 2001, Vol. 10, #8.

Update: Pavel has interviewed us! Part 1, Part 2

Creeping Banana : 1 1/2 stars

A year and a half ago, when _Moisty_and_Meaty_ hit the shelves, we here at Hard Grind magazine just ignored it: We hoped The Braindead Monkeys would quietly go away. Unfortunately, they didn't, and they're becoming a phenomenon we can't afford to ignore any longer. The last, puerile album, _Real_Butter_, was a sensation, and today, three full days before release, crowds are not just lining up around the corners of the record stores -- they're wrapping around the buildings several times, and they're all there to purchase and treasure a copy of _Creeping_Banana_.

Clearly, The Braindead Monkeys have something to offer which goes beyond mere music. But so far, we've been totally unable to discover what that something is.

To put it bluntly, almost every track on every CD is crap. Most of their tracks hardly get started before the beat is rudely interrupted by static, shouting, gutter humor, and general noise. And in the tracks which do contain actual music (apparently accidental), they are usually marred by the presence of a very out-of-tune trumpet player. And all the music sounds familiar, unoriginal somehow. You get the feeling you heard these tunes on vinyl a long time ago.

-- Jeremy Hatch
Reprinted by permission from "Hard Grind Magazine", October 12, 2001, Vol. 4, #2.