He's probably the only guy who could make me revel in lines like 'Well, I met her on the street where she beat me like a poodle / Then she got me accepted to an Ivy League school.' On that song, the indelible 'The Lord is a Monkey,' Haynes stream of consciousnesses some doggerel while occasionally the track erupts into greasy torrents of guitar on cue. Hearing him scream, bellow, howl, hiss, moan and rave about solving all of his problems with a gun or wanting to fuck his brother in the ass or how much he hates cough syrup (or hell, being in lust with Christina Applegate) is bracing, hilarious, creepy, fucking awesome. Haynes in particular has a perfect rock singer voice in a way the first Butthole Surfers EP way back when would never lead you to believe was possible. With choruses.ДЄnd the thing about Haynes, guitarist Leary and drummer Coffey during their years creating 'Gibbytronix' vocal effects and spotwelding fantastically weird and often evil sounds together, they turned into pretty shit-hot musicians. On Electriclarryland, Haynes still spouts nonsense, scatology and shaggy dog stories, he just does it over a relatively concise, heavy and tuneful set of songs. made this record because they bowed to pressure or not, actually I like parts of the rest of the Buttholes' career (вЂњWhirling Hall of KnivesвЂќ and вЂњCherubвЂќ are the kind of menacing, fog-machined stomps I can really get behind), but too often their weirdness feels tossed off for the sake of being difficult or making inside jokes or general goofiness I canвЂ™t get behind. I donвЂ™t expect diehards to like it, but isn't it more interesting to look at whether the album succeeds on the terms the band chose? DonвЂ™t fault the terms. Unless you're going to claim that bands just shouldn't change or try on a more conventional sound, it's kind of invalid to criticize this one from being different from the rest of the band's discography. I mean, yes, if you were a diehard fan of the insanity that Gibby Haynes, Paul Leary, King Coffey and whoever else they could rope in produced on a regular basis, and you were expecting Electriclarryland to be more of the same, I could see it being a nasty shock in 1996. IвЂ™m still not sure what I think of all that, but it's hard for me to fault this album for not being something it was never meant to be. I didn't have the opportunity to check out the Buttholes' lengthy discography until years after my 'Pepper'-loving teenage self bought Electriclarryland (and initially found it off-puttingly вЂњdifficult,вЂќ). Which is fair to an extent, I suppose Electriclarryland is a rock album (albeit a weird one), as opposed to the band's roots in weird music (albeit with rock tinges). Maybe they just should have changed their name? The one common thread I've heard or read in fans' reactions to Electriclarryland is that they find it wanting compared to the Butthole Surfers' earlier, crazier material.

Butthole surfers electriclarryland