REVIEW: Crash Test Dummies, Give Yourself a Hand (Arista)
- Tracey Bleile
Contrary to how humans react to new things, change is good. Transitionary periods are important. One of my favorite mantras is, "The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions." That said, there are strong, successful transitions, and there are some that are meaningful only to the person doing the actual transitioning. The new release from the literary, clever Dummies, Give Yourself a Hand takes one of those latter shifts that is going to leave a lot of people scratching their heads.
This release, more than any previous effort, appears to be more like the Brad Roberts Project than a true band collaboration. And while the Dummies have reached into a deep, dark, groovy realm with the music and the musicianship, the lyrical content has roamed into a place that most of us left behind about junior high. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the title track is about exactly what you surmise it might be about. In an effort to test boundaries of urban beat poetry (Roberts is currently living in Harlem, and notes that has been a major source of inspiration) Give Yourself strings together a series of short, brutal vignettes, that, had more of a literary cue been taken as in the past, could have blown someone like Soul Coughing right out of the East River. And while some of these scenarios work, like the witty call and response couplets assembling the lead off "Keep A Lid On Things" (featuring Roberts shifting gears from his usual bass baritone to a crazed falsetto), and a humorously nasty take on euthanasia "Just Shoot Me, Baby." The throw-off comes with most of the humor being on the order of a Shakespearean-trained actor telling a fart joke; hey, there's no law against it....but the shock value is frittered away when you're busy playing pocket pool instead of throwing punches. There are moments that will ring truer with Dummies lovers: "I Love Your Goo" where the object of the protagonist's affections is described in visceral -- ahem, literally -- detail; i.e. "I love your guts / I love your goo / Your ugly blood / Your creepy heart") and "Aching To Sneeze," describing in graphic detail the delicious agony of a tickly nose.
The saving grace here is the production value, much of which was boosted from the collaboration of Brad Roberts with producer Greg Wells, and the aural quality is as rich, dark and tasty as you could want from serious funk, containing lounge, cinema noir and even drum n' bass to enliven the mix. Hell, at this point the Dummies could hook up with fellow Canadians Bootsauce (who re-wrote the entire book on white boy funk, and nastiness, for that matter) on one scary double bill and have it be a pairing from heaven. But there's enough missing from Give Yourself to make you view their previous release A Worm's Life with newfound appreciation and leave us pondering the Dummies' fate.
