Search - Brainiac :: Bonsai Superstar

Freak-Out cyborg punk funk

Issac Boulton | 01/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Probably one of the most unfairly neglected bands of the 90's (up there with Built to Spill and The Dismemberment Plan), Brainiac proved they were light-years ahead of their time. Bonsai Superstar sounds like a macabre amalgamation of Devo, Nirvana, Funkadelic, and the Pixies. Timmy Taylor sounds scarier here than ever before. The beat-boxing that kicks off the incendiary "Sexual Frustration" is absolutely haunting. John Schmersal's addition really kicks in. Both the experiments and the rock tracks work wonderfully in this setting. However, Bonsai Superstar is not quite as easy to listen to as Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, but the rewards are numerous. My personal favorite track is the subtly funky "Status:Choke". Brainiac were definitely taken too soon, but fortunately we have Enon to fill their shoes. For newcomers to the band, start with Hissing Prigs and then move to this one. Peace"

Best alien invasion of the nineties

Daniel | Columbus, OH United States | 04/03/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To the extent that I have any sort of generation, I'd like to hereby honor this disc with being the Voice of mine. It's as acerbic as any around, but a hundred times smarter. Just when you think it's about to kill you, it's urging you to take your vitamins. Just when you think it will save you, it grins from ear-hole to ear-hole and ZAAAAPS you with its death ray. From the most toppled-over riffs imaginable, Brainiac scavenge gleaming moments of pure electroshock bliss. This band seemed to understand right way what so few ever do: if you're going to follow your muse, follow her all the way over the top. Half-way measures only confuse."

Still Unprecedented

Steven G. Milam | Greenville, SC USA | 12/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Invention of a new sub-genre is no mean feat. Even some of the greatest bands of all time have proven themselves to be so by expertly exploiting the elements of an established genre. With Bonsai Superstar, the maniacal midwestern collective Brainiac singlehandedly defined junkyard electro-rock. The merits of this achievement are debatable, but the fact remains that this clanging mess is one heck of a killer album, and it could quite possibly be unlike anything you've ever heard.



At times, Brainiac's vision is baffling. Fugazi-style punk is fractured into bizarrely explosive shards and joined with so many incongruous musical elements that referring to the record as "eclectic" doesn't even make sense. Every riff is impossibly jagged and every vocal line is delivered either with heavy distortion or a bizarre castrato affectation. Vocalist Timmy Taylor whispers, moans, and wails while the guitars crunch and squeal, orchestrating oblivion into a focused catharsis. However, despite this unprecedented unconventionality, the defining characteristic of Brainiac is not their strangeness -- it is their soul and groove, their inexplicable space-freak sexiness. Bonsai Superstar will seduce you with it's quirky funk as it's rocking you with the potency of a thousand martian Nirvanas, and it's this uncanny ability that makes Brainiac the single most successfully innovative group of the '90s. Members of Brainiac may have moved on to respectable projects like Enon after Taylor's tragic death and continued to mine the sci-fi dance-punk ethic, but Bonsai Superstar is the towering magnum opus of this bizarre style,and essential for anyone who is looking for something that is, more than any other record in recent memory, entirely and genuinely new."