Published on Feb 1, 2001
Sometimes, I don’t know why I bother giving some bands a second
– or even a third – chance.
Take New York-based Crazy Mary, for example. I wasn’t overly
impressed by their out-of-tune, minimalistic style that was
She Comes In Waves. So what makes anyone think I’ll change
my mind with
Astronaut Dubs, a seven-song EP featuring remixes of five of
Crazy Mary’s songs?
You can’t spin straw into gold, and despite Crazy Mary’s
efforts, they just can’t breathe any life into these songs, no
matter how much studio trickery they use to manipulate the songs. I
will give the disc credit, though – at least it’s only 17 minutes
long, so they don’t draw out the pain for long.
Two of the tracks are pulled from Crazy Mary’s first disc
Passion Pit, and while “Johnny Thunders” offers the only ray
of sunshine on this dark cloud of a disc, “Lightnin’ Strikes” shows
that the band has reveled in the minimalist style since their
earliest days. This track is just annoying as hell.
Of the three songs pulled from
She Comes In Waves, two of the tracks feature two different
mixes. Memo to the band: I wasn’t terribly fond of “Shock Me” or
“She Comes In Waves” the first time around. What makes you think
I’m going to like double-sized helpings the second time through the
buffet line? On the latter track, both versions sound like one
trick added is a bit of white noise, which is faded in and out at
random. Stop it,
stop it,
stop it!!!
The 47-second blast of weird nothingness, “No Resistance,” seems
to act as a buffer between the two albums’ songs, but is so
non-existent that it’s not even worth talking at length about.
Maybe Crazy Mary is not a band for everyone, I’m willing to
concede that. But how
Astronaut Dubs is supposed to win them over new fans is
beyond me. After all, you don’t go to the freak show at the
carnival to widen your social circle.