This is the second album by Athens-based Georgia boys Muuy Biien who have been dealing with the trauma of their singer being badly injured in a skateboard accident. He has apparently been performing live from his wheelchair at recent live dates.
This album, however, contains no pleas for sympathy. Far from it, actually, as it wants to grab you round the neck and make you think about if you want to do yourself in or not. Well, whatever you decide, make sure you listen to this album first. The sleeve features a drawing of a hanging torso with a chair beneath it to make sure you know this isn't a happy record.
It opens with Cyclothymia I: a sustained drone intro like a shortened Glenn Branca or Wharton Tiers piece before Human Error blasts out of the speakers and into a twitchy as all hell tune that attacks with vicious shards of noise blasting at you over Wire-style vocals.
White Ego has a really cool bass intro before a great shouty, angular off kilter tune about how ego takes over some people. Melters, meanwhile, will melt your brain with its mad noises underpinned by a rumbling bass riff.
What Isn't asks questions about what isn't nature over an angry shouty vocal and a clattering tune that recalls some of the more obtuse parts of the Gang Of Four. She Bursts (Reprise) is another Wire-style tune with a guitar riff that seems to mimic a police siren as she blurts "oh well there goes the girlfriend!"
The b-side opens with Cyclothymia II with the same Branca-style elements and is also a bit like the Velvet Underground's early noise experiments like Loop and Melody Laughter but much shorter than those. Then Virus Evolves bursts out spraying us with its infectious noise. It's a high octane punk song on way too much speed.
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Dust...love a bit of dust, dust MMM dust? No it's not a comedy sketch set to music but an urgent choppy and far too brief punk tune. Crispin Noir? Now is that posh boy noir or is it actually some Gang Of Four gone all shouty with bass parts nicked from Pylon style noir? Well, the latter obviously.
Frigid features a very short but very cool bass intro before the splenetic anger of a Gas Huffer gone awry type of thing. D.Y.I. has a bass rumble underpinning the rest of what happens around it as he tries to get through before you do yourself in. Will they save you? Well you need to hear this song as it will (I hope) affirm your need to not do yourself in.
The album fades out with Cyclothymia III: more piano-led hiss-filled drone that would be perfect to have playing as they left the stage after a good brief set. There again, no tune on this album is longer than 3 minutes 24 seconds so they are all about brevity. I hope they are somewhere near as exciting live as they are on this album Muy Bien indeed for Muuy Biien.
Muuy Biien Bandcamp page
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