THE RESIDENTS

Review #134!

I bought this on EBay to see what was up. Holy crapadoodledoo, this one's a zinger! If this was on 'The Third Reich and Roll', I would've loved it even more! I hate to demean The Rolling Stones, but this is a hell of a lot better than the original. And the backside! Mwahh! 'Loser=Weed' is a damn good early showcase of The Residents' early industrial sounds. Great '45, and worth every penny of the thirteen dollars I got it for. Crazy, ridiculous, ear-wrenching, hideous, innovative music that I crave from the Residents. When do they get a medal? Prog on!

Review #131!

'Not Available' is a very somber album. Every track follows the same story. Although the storyline is quite vague and open to interpretation, it is powerful nontheless. 'Edweena' begins the story of (at least the answer I got by breaking down the lyrics) a widow who has depression, debating if she should search for new love. The music really hits no high notes. It's just one long, droning piece with vocals buried and uncovered as you go on. There is a reference to Frank Zappa's song 'Uncle Remus'. Uncle Remus is an actual character in this concept album, acting more like a narrator. 'The Making of A Soul' starts off fun, but it really isn't. The lyrics are highly philosophical and dark. The music here is sad. Very sad. This song continues the Edweena story, going deeper into her mental health. This song introduces the character Porcupine, which represents her mental health issues. The vocals here are so hurt that it sounds like they are crying. Maybe they are. The music is so haywire that I can't tell for sure. This song is more painful to listen to than 'Edweena'. 'Ship's A'Going Down' seems like a mental argument of different ideas in Edweena's brain. The title of the song represents Edweena's fight with her mind. This song introduces Catbird, manifestation of the hope for survival and well-being in Edweena's mind. There is also a character called the Enigmatic Foe, who disagrees with everything the Catbird says, telling Edweena that life is meaningless. This track features a reprise of 'Edweena'. 'Never Known Questions' shows Edweena trying to find a new purpose in life after the death of her husband. She needs someone else to show her, but she doesn't know that someone. The music feels very jittery and erratic. High-pitched vocals sing for almost the whole song. Discordant horns play for the majority as well. Heart-aching to hear. 'Epilogue' shows a now happy and loved Edweena, but she forgets about how bad her mental health was just recently, and so she might repeat it again. Although 'Not Available' is an album thick a concept and power, it is a bit lacking in the music department, with the only enjoyable (not like The Residents care if their music is enjoyable or not) song being 'Edweena', with its warped, discordant keyboard beat that is echoed throughout the album. But still a great record, and something that still stands tall in The Residents' discography.

Review #129!

And you thought "Duck Stab" was crazy! The Residents' first album is an insane blob of avant-garde at its most complicated. Frank Zappa would gape at this nonsense. The first track, 'Boots' is nothing but ukulele and grainy talking that is not even comprehensible. This melts into 'Numb Erone', a nice, repetitive piano-driven beat. Probably the nicest thing found on this entire album. 'Guylum Bardot' is like jazz on LSD. The sax (the main element here) sounds warped and 'Numb Erone' plays in the background. The classic The Residents vocals kick in and go away very quickly. 'Breath and Length' sounds like a dog being hit with a baseball occasionally muffled by girls chanting nonsense. Truly ear-piercing noise, but interesting. 'Consuelo's Departure' is like 'Numb Erone', with a repetitive beat that is slightly altered throughout. 'Smelly Tongues' is like a continuation of the previous track, but with vocals singing about smelly tongues. 'Rest Aria' is a surprisingly somber piano-based song, and one of the longest on the album. Amazing. 'Skratz' is a minute and a half of weird music (if one can call it that) and nonsense vocals. 'Spotted Pinto Bean' sounds like a 30's ditty gone wrong. The pianist lost his sheets, the chorus doesn't like to start itself; it's all pure madness. 'Infant Tango' is like a funk song, but Residentified. Hellish, I say. Hellish. 'Seasoned Greetings' is one of my favorite songs on this album. There is a lot of weird stuff going on here: drugged brass, delayed percussion. The vocals at the end are great. This would have been a nice conclusion to this album, but we got one more. 'N-ER-GEE(Crisis Blues)' is like a pre-punk world all its own. Heavy instrumentation, guitar all over the place, real weird. And you ask why The Residents are so influential? PBSCHT. I have but one more thing to say to you: Prog on.

Alien experimental rock operetta

This is genuinely one of the best and most original albums ever released. I've never heard anything like it. Before or after. The album has a dreamy feel, strange instrumentation, loose composition, motifs, dissonance, abstract vocals, fascinating story, weird concept (if any???). It's in my opinion The Residents' most mature work. It's a very moving album and a very rewarding listen. It makes me feel emotions that I can't explain.

I found it once on Youtube, didn't like it, but the first song intrigued me, 10 seconds were enough to draw me in. I kept coming back to it. Again, and again, and again... I keep coming back to this record and it gets better each time. Now it's an album I feel comfortable saying that it's my favourite. And it's one of the best albums EVER made.

The aching And the breaking Are the making Of the soul.

Review #98!

The Residents in all their glory. I had first heard of The Residents through a multitude of Primus covers (i.e. 'Hello Skinny/Constantinople', 'Sinister Exaggerator'), and I'm glad I have. I have made it my mission to one day tackle their entire discography (no easy feat). But that doesn't matter. Let's talk about 'Duck Stab/Buster and Glen'. The album starts with 'Constantinople', a horrifying little ditty with ear-piercing vocals and keyboards. It sounds eery and great simultaneously. It is a great opener to this album. Next track is 'Sinister Exaggerator', another relatively unsettling song. It is almost normal until the horrifying vocals enter again. Then you're just left feeling uncomfortable. It's pretty short, so it doesn't go on too long. 'The Booker Tease' is what I think is a parody of 'Green Onions'. I am not sure though. For a one- minute runtime sounds pretty good. 'Blue Rosebuds' has some unusually loud vocals which overpower the music, creating a creepy atmosphere. At some point there is some absolutely bone-chilling high-pitched voice shouting some stuff I decide to ignore in sake of my mental health that makes it all the worse. The song ends how it starts. 'Laughing Song' has some vocals that sound eerily like Les Claypool's. I suspect somebody was cloned here. A seemingly normal song, but after multiple listens reveals itself for all that it is. 'Bach is Dead' has some annoying squeaky noises and repetitive lyrics. About the same length as 'Booker Tease'. 'Elvis and His Boss' is driven by disturbing warped guitar and percussion. The lyrics I do not care in the slightest to learn. 'Lizard Lady' has a punk feel. It makes sense why The Residents had a role in the formation of the punk genre. There is more squeaky lyrics like in 'Blue Rosebuds'. This is my second-favorite song on the album. 'Semolina' has some more ear-piercing vocals and weird lyrics. 'Birthday Boy' has a punk feel as well, and nice lyrics. 'Weight Lifting Lulu' has a very dark feel, darker than all the other songs on the album, in my opinion. 'Krafty Cheese brings me so much joy. It sounds scary, but I think it's kind of goofy, so I laugh. 'Hello Skinny' brings me even more joy. The Primus Medley cover I think is better, but the original is still great. It is my favorite song on this album, and maybe from The Residents as a whole. It has quite cryptic lyrics and instrumentation. The last song on the album is 'The Electrocutioner', which has some more squeaky vocals that for some reason I like better in this song. Some droning guitar absolutely tears through the track (how did the guitarist not break a string?). Anyways, 'Duck Stab/Buster and Glen' is a great album for all psychopaths, murderers, and- oh, sorry. , 'Duck Stab/Buster and Glen' is a great album for all prog lovers and for people willing to not sleep for two days. Highly recommend.

This album is The Residents in full "swing" covering James Brown and George Gershwin The positive with this albums is they way The Residents do Gershwin, where they still use alot of emu emulators which they had for the last years, and this works very well until you play the James Brown side, Which at first listen is a very funny one, but it grows irritating and in the end falls flat (imho) Again, if they could only get the complete "American Composer Serie" pRESERVED Boxset of it all, My dice would be much higher, based on some excerpts released on the various uweb`s and 7"s ____Here they do much more Justice all together as a boxset

Glancing at previous reviews and I honestly forgot that anonymity was such a big deal for this band ("anonymous lineup" haha). And really, quite the novelty for when they came onto the scene. Also with timing, cool this was only 10 years after Meet The Beatles. I don't have to feel this to be true: so much happened culturally and specifically in music in that span of time. Of course, Progressive Rock and Art musics generally increased in popularity, but also its foundation in Psych and Space Rock was 'happening' in that time; the advent of Fusion and Heavy Metal occurred. A lot was goin' on. And then there's this... Avant-Rock a la America.

When the album started, I had to bring myself back to reality with who it was I was hearing haha. Bizarro doo-wop in "Boots"?! I'm sure people figured the Mothers of Invention were key to this sound. "Numb Erone" is as sour as it gets. And it gives way to this build of instrumentation and complexity (and weirdness) on "Guylum Bardot" with woodwinds... It's with this song that I hear the potential for a future Les Claypool?! Obviously, as he, they were referencing then something-something old-timey.

Rolling right along to the next elements with "Breath and Length". Really cool, strange instrumentation. The female vox are a nice, eerie touch. "Consuelo's Departure" continues in this theme with some electronic elements and... what sounds like paper being sliced? Probably not. Some wild experimentation here. Electronic scurrying and weird far-off sampling continues the affair on "Smelly Tongues", which I really quite like. Plenty going on, though it may first appear incredibly minimal. And that's the end of this medley of bizarre happenings.

Next is "Rest Aria", an appropriate name if there ever was one. Solo piano plays sourly in some distant corner of the room. It is met with some sharp chiming percussion and what sounds like accordion? It rises and falls: pretty static. The saxophone at the end is real nice, I must say. Then the final sub-2-minute track, "Skratz", was mmediately more my thang. It has this weird, nodding sort of effect. The vocals are creepy and the brushing of the cymbals and the reeds and all else are a fine match.

"Spotted Pinto Bean" feels like a call-back to Musique Concrete. Very strange and random. Creepy, but... familiar? It's pretty good. Onto "Infant Tango", and now I'm understanding why people are talking about it. This has funk and then swing, but all around it has charm. Some of the most bizarro vocals on the album. It's dancey and experimental in the greatest of ways. "Seasoned Greetings" reminded me of something by Eno ("Some of Them Are Old"?). Onto the creep on the final track, "N-ER-GEE (Crisis Blues)"--thank you, The Residents; I had no idea how to pronounce that. Banging on pianos. Sharp strikes of guitar. Some fine vocals, this'n? Then we're back into the swing, with something that sounds very familiar: "Nobody But Me" originally by the Isley Brothers in 1962. I say who cares if they're an inspiration at all (surprising as it would be). Calls to mind The Mothers' use of "Louie Louie" some 7 years before.

It's looking like I may be in the minority that feels this landmark debut isn't necessarily "Excellent". Important for the time? No doubt about it. And I'm seeing people call to its uniqueness. But of course, nothing has ever been made in a vacuum. The fact that, for instance, this was made a year after Henry Cow's Legend, I'd rather take that. It's hard not to make comparisons, and I did that aplenty here. The thing that can be noted is that this level of avant-garde experimentation feels like call-backs to 20 years before, but also feels like it's 10+ years ahead of the curve. A punk-level of not-giving-a-f*ck about what you think about their oddity.

True Rate: 3.5/5.0

After a couple of years interacting musically with madness, experimentation, sound effects and wars consequences, The Residents seem to have arrived at what is the greatest work of their discography. Pop has rarely been an accomplice of such a perfectly expressed degree of madness.

What surprised me most about this band when I found them was to read that the names of their members were anonymous, although due to the lyrics of the songs that makes sense. As the good symphonic rock enthusiast that I am I sometimes find it hard to get into such perverse and transgressive albums as this one because here not only the rules are broken in the lyrics but also in the sinister sounds that work as arrangements and in the way the instruments are played.

The album goes through every existing tone, while dark repetitions happens giving to the songs of the album a clever, machiavellian and sarcastic sense.

Is very important the sense of the lyrics. Something I find curious about this album (as I don't usually feel this way with other albums) is that much of the immersion into this insane field is the responsibility of the lyrics. In a short album of short songs the perversion tries to go down many different paths, focusing on the typical psychopathic vision of the nature-loving but man-hating human being. It is a very interesting album to listen to and ideal as a recommendation for those who want to be introduced to this kind of music.

This is one of the best spoofs of rock and roll I have heard yet. The Residents isn't really what I call a band, but more of a art collective that makes music(?). With that, their first album 'Meet The Residents' showcased their Avant- Garde and experimental sound they were fully capable of, however here, they pulled out no stops and made something that I legit don't know how to describe. I feel like whenever I listen to this album, I feel like I am sucked in a weird, bright green void of sounds and noises that I cannot begin to understand. That is why I love The Residents so much, they aren't like other bands where they take you on a beautiful or terrifying journey, they just take you on a trip that you cannot describe, and not in a drug kinda way. The 2 songs on this album are so weird and disturbing and filled with chaos. But somehow with this chaos, I am at ease. It's kinda relaxing in a way listening to these weird sounds of pure, unfiltered weirdness. Stay true to your weirdness Residents.

HERE I COME GOD DAMN CONSTANTINOPLE!!!

Not an album for the faint hearted. So that you understand how inaccessible this band is in general, this is actually one of their most accessible records. The album features polyphony, twisted vocals, acid instrumentation and a very enjoyable silliness present in every track. Some songs are chill, jazzy and mellow, some others are bombastic, insane and over-the-top, and there's no other band capable of merging those two things as well as The Residents.

If you like bands like Primus (a band that would not exist if it wasn't because of The Residents) or Frank Zappa, go check this out. You're probably already used to weird, experimental music. If you're not used to avant-garde, good luck! You'll either love it or hate it!