Published on Jul 2, 2000
Yeah, I wanna speak to the boss…
now. Tell him Christopher Thelen is waiting for him.
What? What’s it about? Well, if you must know, it’s about this
Karma To Burn disc,
Wild Wonderful Purgatory. He wants me to write a review of
this disc featuring this West Virginia trio, and… well, it’s damn
near impossible.
For starters, he wants me to write about three guys — guitarist
Will, bassist Rich and drummer Rob — who use no last names. Then,
he wants me to not talk about how unnecessary it was to feature a
picture of the band with Rob’s nuts hanging out.
But worst of all, he expects me to write something legible about
an album that neither has vocals nor song titles. All the “titles”
are merely numbers. How the hell am I supposed to keep track of
songs when I don’t have any neat reference points?
No, wait, don’t interrupt me. I’m on a roll now.
You know what he expects of these reviews. I’ve sat in that
cramped office listening to
Wild, Wonderful Purgatory on and off for the last few weeks,
and only now do I think I have any type of understanding about this
band. Karma To Burn play music that dares to suggest falling under
the “stoner rock” category, but more often than not, they show that
their music is more intelligent and thought out than other groups
that are lumped into that genre.
You’ve got songs like “Thirty” that really show off some good
guitar work by Will, and you have others like “Twenty” that lay
down a solid groove that will have you jamming nine ways to Sunday.
I mean, it’s hard to describe, and it probably wouldn’t have worked
as well if they had vocals on top of the music, but it’s a bit
frustrating at times.
What? Why is it frustrating? Well, because as good as some of
these performances are,
Wild, Wonderful Purgatory can’t help but fall into a trap of
stagnation after a while. As good as the instrumentals are, it
sometimes seems like you can only take so much of it without really
wishing for some kind of a break in the pattern. The occasional
sample doesn’t really help matters much.
You see what I mean? He wants me to write about how Karma To
Burn has a lot of potential, as
Wild, Wonderful Purgatory suggests, but I question whether
they’ve pigeonholed themselves by the very nature of their musical
style.
Anyway, just tell the boss I wanna talk to him. Say what? What’s
that?
I’m the boss? Oh, yeah, I forgot all about that. Never mind
– oh, and don’t you dare tell anyone I just spent ten minutes
debating with the answering machine.