Published on Jun 21, 1999
What hath Rage Against The Machine wrought?
Thanks to their success, we’re now seeing a lot of bands who put
a tough-sounding rap (not necessarily as political as Rage’s
lyrics, though) to a solid metal beat. The market isn’t
oversaturated… yet.
With a name that’s sure to get Mattel’s undies in a bunch,
Gangsta Bitch Barbie follows in this vein. Their debut disc
This Is Not A Test is a decent enough effort, though it
really takes some time before you can get into the groove. Problem
is, clocking in at a half hour, it really shouldn’t take that long
to land the first uppercut.
The group – vocalist Ken Smith, guitarists Chris Fitzgerald and
Jim Foster, bassist Jim Shippey and drummer Danny Marques – know
how to lay down a groove and follow it up with a solid vocal
performance. (One issue of contention: the liner notes list “Todd”
as a guitarist, and not Jim Foster as written in the bio and on
their Web site. Explanation, guys?)
The disc starts off a little slow with “Suplex Ninja” – not a
bad track at all, just not the ideal first choice to kick things
off. The follow-up track, “Six.5,” also fails to really light a
fire under the listener. This isn’t saying that these tracks are
bad – indeed, they’re both listenable and entertaining. It’s just
that if Gangsta Bitch Barbie wanted to blow me off my chair from
the start, it didn’t happen.
Fortunately, things get thrown into hyperdrive with “Godzilla”
and “KingPin”. The latter of these two remains my favorite, with a
definite vocal hook that is going to bore itself into your brain.
(Days after listening to this, I found myself saying for no
apparent reason, “Swing, swing, batter batter, swing!”) (The disc
closes with an unlisted remix of “KingPin” – I’ll say this much, at
least they chose an excellent track as the hidden track, and I
didn’t have to wait long at all for it to kick off.)
Tracks like “Fluff O Nutta” and “Downsize” all do impress, but
This Is Not A Test ends just as things start to warm up for
the band. This is where I think that EPs do more harm than good.
Sure, eight songs (nine, counting the bonus track) might not really
count as an EP, but when this disc clocks in at just over a
half-hour, I almost feel that I haven’t had enough time to really
get used to the style that Gangsta Bitch Barbie is laying down.
And there’s no doubt that the band has talent, though I would
really like to see them move away from a pure RATM sound and try to
come up with a groove all their own. But it somehow doesn’t feel
right pronouncing judgment on them after a mere half-hour, no
matter how many times I listen to the disc.
This Is Not A Test is a good starting point for the band,
but it commits the venial sins of underexposing the band and
getting off to a slow start. With a little more development of
their style (which is three-quarters of the way there already) and
a followup disc packed with tracks of the same quality caliber as
“KingPin”, then Gangsta Bitch Barbie could well be unstoppable. If
that’s the case, then Zach De La Rocha had better keep an eye in
his band’s rear view mirror.