And I miss being idealistic It's so boring to be realistic And you never get to stick it to the man — Goddamn, from this very record.
This is a bit of a looser review, written somewhat free associatively after listening to this release a few times.
Despite what you may think or even assume looking at the cover for this release, it's surprisingly pop. Punk pop, rock'n'roll, grungy, alternative, whatever you like to say but I'd say surprisingly pop — could you picture it in the current top ten? I don't bleeding know, I could imagine it though.
The best thing I can say about Oinker is that it's fun. It's a romp. It's a good time. But what's the damn thing about you may be wondering, scratching your chin, perhaps even stroking it? Well, vintage cars, the horrible stream of information about the happenings of the world, probably the school system, wage-slavery and, as most songs are, love.
The main attraction here, no reference intended, are the words to the songs. Some hit me very much as the kind of thing you'd see Lou Reed rattling on about, Drum my fingers onto the sofa/waiting for your call/And the minute is almost over/do you even care at all?/The fear is taking hold as/I'm staring at a blue tick/My stomach starts to unfold and/I'm feeling pretty sick. Great stuff, honestly. There's almost a sort of Cat Stevens feel to their voice, which is something I personally quite like.
I will say, where this record fails is very much on the production end. The vocals sort of sit on top of the instrumental in a way that reminds me of someone singing karaoke at a pub. This is more egregious on some tracks than others but it's definitely a point to improve upon and one which GOD RIBBON does seem to improve upon on the Padlock Wonderland and Build A Whole New Town albums.
I don't want to whittle on-&-on about just the songs in order, so instead I'd like to briefly write about just one of the tracks on Oinker. Goddamn is about how goddamn motherfucking shit life can be. You go to school, you work, you go to bed, you get drunk on the weekend and have to go back to work the next day; it's a never-ending cycle, at a point you're just waiting for the day you keel over and die, frothing at the mouth, getting that funky little sparkly plaque on a bench near somewhere you live maybe.
Hopefully this is enough to make you wanna check out this little record, maybe some of GOD RIBBON's other material too: the folky near-dozen songs on Ego Session maybe, which I would personally recommend.
