REVIEW: Green Jelly, 333 (Zoo)
- David Landgren
What would happen if extra-terrestrials captured Lemmy and Weird Al Yankovic and conducted genetic experiments banned by the Galactic High Council? I have no idea, but the scum at the bottom of the Petri dish would probably resemble... Green Jelly.
The band would like you to believe they are excruciatingly bad. They revel in the fact that Rolling Stone voted them "Musical Lowpoint Of 1993". The story goes that they learnt to play by color-coding the guitar frets. Thus, a song was played 'blue, blue, blue, red, blue, blue, blue...'
In any case, they ain't no Eddie Van Halen, but they sure know how to make themselves heard. The opening song on 333, "Carnage Rules", sets the stage for things to come; high-volume thrashing guitar and Bill Manspeaker yelling 'Don't you know that carnage rules?'. The next song is slightly slower; this time he sounds more like a demented Mike Oldfield on the second side of "Tubular Bells". The fourth song, "Fixation", introduces Kym O'Donnell (a.k.a. Sadistica) to the microphone. Think of a grunge Pat Benatar; you won't be too far off the mark.
So far so good, but from this point on, you start thinking about what Rolling Stone wrote, and that maybe there was something in it. The next song is called "Bear Song". Think of Lemmy singing a nursery rhyme ('The bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see'). It's quite hilarious if you're ten. From here, we "Fight" ('fight, fight, fight, fight...'), and then we sing along to "Super Elastic" ('... double plastic'), and then go completely silly with "Jump" ('Kids jump when they're happy, adults jump when they're sad'). Sure.
The album draws to a close with "Anthem" ('Sex and drugs and rock and roll', natch). Look for the tip of the hat to Don McLean's only claim to fame: "American Pie". The final song, slated to be the first single is my favorite track on the album. It's called "Slave boy"... sung in true Weird Al style to the tune (more or less), of "Love Shack" by the B-52s.
And then, that's it. Just when they start warming up, it's finished. And that's the main problem. If this is all they want to do, it wouldn't have taken much effort to come up with another 40 minutes or so. Most of the songs peak out before the three minutes are up. That's fine with me, but cook up some more to fill up that empty space.
To put things into perspective, it's worth understanding how the first album Cereal Killer came about. It turns out that they originally produced a VHS-based extended video clip/album. It wound up selling in excess of 100,000 copies and people started asking for an audio-only version. The second album, 333, is meant to a bigger and better version and be consumed the same way. I, for one, can't wait to see all the cartoon characters (Marshall Staxx, Cowgod, the mutated rat T.O.A.H, and a cast of, well, dozens) on the cover spring to life.
While the music may be somewhat limiting, you have to respect a band that does all the artwork on the album (a la Hard-Ons), makes their own costumes (a la Residents), shoots their own video and so on. In fact, now they are talking about getting comic books published through DC comics, creating their own CD-ROM adventures (Maximum Carnage), producing their own TV show (The Stupid Big Head Show) and pursuing any other avenue that leads to big-time multimedia.
But the point is: At 33 minutes, 333 is too short. So while I agree with the concept, I'd sooner wait for the video game. Or something else.
