DeathandtheFiend : Trendy
Tracklist:
1. Trendy (5:07)
2. Antisexual (5:19)
3. Jews and Gypsies (3:29)
4. Grave Hop (4:21)
5. Joke's On You (4:09)
6. Oh, The Horror Of It All (3:57)
7. Emergency Broadcast System (3:41)
8. Generic Template (0:25)
9. That's Racist (3:51)
10. Weasels Rip My Flesh (2:24)
11. There's No Wrong Way to Eat a Jesus (4:46)
12. Lions and Tigers and Rapists (5:39)
13. The Future Is Bleak (2:15)
TRT: 47:23Vocals: Hans Christian Frankenstein
Guitar: Josef Polzer
Bass: Titus Stone
Drums: Milosh Pope
Keys: Sir Irving Frederick
Back-up Vocals: Martha Washington
Review:After the failure of their "experimental"
Death Jam album, Death Rock icons
DeathandtheFiend took an extended hiatus while frontman
Hans Christian Frankenstein focused on side-projects (
Vigils/Ugandan Giant) but finally the band has reunited and released it's 12th studio album,
Trendy. The tounge-in-cheek title references the fact that the band takes many a jab at the current music scene throughout the course of the album but it's understated so it doesn't come off too gimmicky. To open the album, the title track fittingly uses a hint of the infamous autotune which on paper seems like a horrible idea but it's downplayed and the slow, darkly percolating rhythm is showcased. Another song that seems like a horrible idea is the "Gothic Rap" track
Grave Hop that throws together a cheesy 90's Hip-Hop beat with Gregorian chanting, violins, horns, and ethereal children's singing and somehow makes it work. But aside from those couple tracks, this is pretty much a straight-foward Goth Rock record. The classic sense of dread and drag in
Joke's On You, the frenetic downward spiral of
That's Racist, the tribal insanity of
Jews and Gypsies with
Frankenstein's vocals/lyrics at their most bizarre...it's all here, they even break out the saxophone for the atmospheric
Lions and Tigers and Rapists. And that's not to mention
Antisexual, one of the catchiest Post-Punk anthems the band has ever recorded. The song about how sexual imagery has become so overused in society it's lost all shock value is a ferocious rocker that's further distinguished by the use of cello.
The newest
DATF member
Martha Washington who joined the group for their last album is also allowed to shine on a few tracks. The first being
Oh, The Horror Of It All, a beyond dark ballad-like song mixed with increasingly ominous Middle Ages-esque chanting that gets louder and more powerfull as the song progresses. The second is the chilling
Weasels Rip My Flesh, an almost spoken word track where
Frankenstein's and
Washington's vocals are layered over eachother with minimal instrumentation creating something that sounds right out of a Horror film. This technique is also used on the closing track but is done in more of a church hymm style. If there's any missteps on the album, it's
There's No Wrong Way to Eat a Jesus where
Frankenstein's affinity for African music/chating shows up again except this time it's combined with a New Wave-ish beat that just doesn't work all that well and the pointless
Generic Template (although that probably WAS the point). All in all,
Trendy turns out to be the bands best album in quite some time.
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