Savoring all the camp and style of this CD is one of its finer points. The Fleshtones have always had that alternative, in-your-face thing going on, and it is no different on this new effort.
The utter sarcasm of the lyrics, and brashness of their unique brand of Rock-N-Roll (the word is capitalized for a reason) hook you in by the second note of the first track. Laboratory of Sound is a wild ride in a car with no brakes. The tracks veer from an almost-rockabilly sound on "Let's Go", to a Blues tilt in parts "Train of Thought".
This Steve Albini-produced CD also contains a lot of the straight-ahead grungy rock that one might expect. Peter Zaremba's vocal stylings just manage to pull off even the more questionable numbers (such as the too-generic-sounding "Accelerated Emotion" or "The Sweetest Thing").
The Fleshtones make the whole CD work by using the hit-em-and run technique. The punchy, short numbers don't give you enough time to think about what you actually liked about the tracks; you just remember that they rocked. The longest track, "Hold You", is a whopping 3:43 on the CD clock (although "The Sweetest Thing" seems infinitely longer). All in all, Laboratory of Sound does not make a devastating creation, but it concocts a rather pleasant Camp-Rock potion.
