Listening to ‘Rad Times Xpress IV’, I get the distinct impression that the members of Black Bananas spend a lot of time ‘jus’ hangin’, greet one another with ‘’sup’ and say ‘dude’ a lot. This should hardly come as surprise: Black Bananas is the brainchild of Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux fame and notoriety. Having operated under the name RTX since the Trux demise, releasing three albums, Jennifer and her cohorts decided it was time to fuck shit up some more and spread their grimy wings in different musical directions. Behold, Black Bananas.
The result is, well, patchy. All too often, the urge to chuck a whole heap of stuff into the mixer results not in some mind-blowing far-out groove, but a eye-watering, wince-inducing mess of racket. Too many elements are chucked in seemingly with wild abandon and undue care. Intentional as it may be, it doesn’t equal good listening.
‘It’s Cool’ sounds like a band soundchecking a pub gig through a cruddy PA while you’re standing outside in the beer garden smoking a fag. ‘Aid Song’ is the frizzled, fried mess its title suggests, ‘RTX Gogo’ meanders aimlessly, weaving this way and that, and on ‘Hot Stupid’ the slapback on the bass drum creates a doubling effect that’s almost out of sync with the rest of the instrumentation. That’s before the fuzzed-to-fuck guitars with whappy wah-wah all over them battle it out for supremacy. Neither wins.
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There are some great moments to be found buried amidst the indulgent excess and when Black Bananas achieve them, they really do strike gold: The Prince-like 80s funk rock workout that is ‘rad Times’ is pulled off with remarkable aplomb, while ‘My House’ is a full-on grunged-up scuzz rocker, groaning with sleaze and snarling with attitude.
I always found Royal Trux’s output suffered from the same tendency toward indulgence and apparent lack of quality control. Fans of Herrema’s previous work will no doubt love this, but for my money it would work better is cleaned up, stripped down and trimmed. Jus’ sayin’, y’know?
Black Bananas Online
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