Lozenge
Mishap
Sickroom
Wow, this is just a weird and wonderful album, an exhausting and at times hilarious ride through some warped mind obsessed with Captain Beefheart, The Bad Seeds and Chicagoan post-prog. And it’s good, too, which is probably the most disturbing part of it all.
Heavy on the percussion and the freeform jamming, this album presents recordings of two live shows played a month apart. The first one is a rambling, humorous and lighthearted affair, with the scatting “El Bombo” and a pounding “Exasperanto” being the obvious highlights.
The second show is a much heavier and in your face performance, that still maintains the music’s subtle edge amidst all the hard-hitting, punching deliveries. The addition of saxophone sharpens the band and adds a whole new dimension to their sound. And with the freak-out of “Pink,” the riveting, circulating “Mr. Fancypants” and the dark, eerie “Wantnot,” Lozenge draws both the concert audience and the CD listener into their strange, frantic world.
Sickroom Records: http://www.sickroomrecords.com