Review, Jello Biafra atGSoM and Attentat albums

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine
White People And The Damage Done
Download, CD, LP
Alternative Tentacles
(Review from the digital release)

Whatever Mr Biafra does he makes it sounds like a Dead Kennedys record. The new Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine album “White People and the Damage Done” is no exception. Since 1976 Jello Biafra has been mocking the stupidity of the Conservative America. Since 1978 he has done it on records. Since the breakup of Dead Kennedys in 1986 he have had numerous collaborations and Solo project. JBatGSoM is just another one.

The problems JB faces is that he done some of the World´s most significant punk hits with the Dead Kennedys like “Holliday in Cambodia”, “Let´s Lynch The Landlord”, “Kill The Poor”, “Too Drunk to Fuck”, “Halloween”, “We got a Bigger Problem Now” etc. And whatever he does now days I will, subconscious, compare it with the hits of his past. Not least of his way of singing it.

As always at a Biafra record there is a funny, thought-provoking title. No exception this time, “White People and the Damage done”, as a miss quote of Neil Young´s “The Needle and the Damage Done”. A macabre front cover as usual is in place. The Lyrics on the album is as political as ever. The tunes sounds a lot like Dead Kennedys tunes but with not as much treble as in DKs tunes. The similarity to DK is a bit problematic to me. I love Dead Kennedys, but I don´t love this. The record have a much more heavy sound than DKs ever had, so it should work, at least in theory. But the tunes isn´t as catchy as the former tunes was. They are catchy but not as catchy. After a while the record starts to stand out as an own record on its own terms. But at a first listen to it, it sounds like they try to be Dead Kennedys but can´t get it right. There are exceptions from it. The title track “White People and the Damage Done” and “Crapture” and “The Brown Lipstick Parade” are good tunes that I can like. Possible the “Hollywood Goof Disease” as well. The rest isn´t bad in any way but it is more mediocre and I got higher expectation on Mr Jello Biafra to get me jumping up and down in cheer joy.
There are a funny little steal from Deep Purple´s “Space Trucking” in “Crapture” that makes me smile.

Worth buying? Maybe, Possible, it depends. At least the good songs, on the other hand, listen to a full album makes more sense to it.

Attentat
Fy Fan
Download, CD, LP

(Review from the digital release)

Attentat´s singles released in 1978-1980 was the pride of my vinyl punk single collection. They were my teenage Idols, even if it wasn´t OK to have idols by the time. With the album era during the rest of the 1980ies I didn´t followed them as eager as I did before.

Attentats new album “Fy Fan” was proceded by a number of singles During 2012. The singles “Fy fan Svenska man”, “Occupy Wall Street”, “Dö som en hund”, “Sweet and Slade” with b-sides was released through the year 2012. So when the album actually reached the desk in 2013 it felt like it wasn´t a new album. The singles had already showed that this wasn´t going to be an easy album to review (that´s why it took some time to review it). mainly because it isn´t one album. It is parts of several different ones, hacked up and put into one album. At least that is my impression. It is a complicated affair because of it, to be nice, unfocused, to be rude.

Attentat have been around since the late seventies and gained some main stream success in the traces of KSMB and Ebba Grön. Not as successful as those however, but almost. And went from be some -77 type of street punks to a more pop oriented rock band. The silence that then followed during the years Attentat was down must have build up several different directions in the minds and taste of the members. And is it so, then it is what hear on the record. Like if they tried to get their ideas down in the recordings. I don´t know, but I can´t find another explanation to this record.

I can´t say I like it, I can´t say I don´t. Some tunes are good, some fair and some….well I don´t know. Seems like the charismatic singer Jönsson* likes his tune “Sweet and Slade”, about his teenage glam rock era idols. I can relate to it because I was a Sweet fan as a kid, but I can´t relate to the song in general. I think it is drivel, just as "Gilla mig" is. “Fattiga och rika” is something like a Clash “Should I stay or should I go” Pastiche and it works quite OK. “Dö some en hund” is punky and is like the old school Attentat been awake for a while.

This record isn´t great. Like the rest of the Attentat albums it isn´t. The sound is big but could be harder. And the outstanding hits that the earlier albums contained isn´t there either. But I think this was a necessary record for them to do. To get rid of what have been brewing during the silent years. In order to give place for another album much more sharp and focused in the future, I hope.

Worth buying? If you are a hard core Attentat fan and if you like their softer tunes, otherwise I would say, save your money because this year have many releases by great bands.

*What I can see on Facebook