Search - Toiling Midgets :: Son

Takes Your Breath While Rending Your Ears

calico30 | Katy Texas | 08/02/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the years since I first popped this ambitious, brooding masterpiece in my CD player, I've noted the often precipitous alterations in my listening habits. My impatience, which at times would not permit me to sit through a Descendents tune, would be supplanted by a mellow and unexacting mien so acute as to accept forty minutes of Ravi Shankar sitar thrum. Not only how long I listened, but what I found myself listening to, is more evidence of the incredible vagaries that occur in an age in which Mohawks and parted oiled hair might fall into discussion on a bus, return to respective homes, and order a Black Flag or Stravinsky CD.I still listen to this CD, though. Exactly why would require a listen, or several successive listens. The souls of the tortured: Liars, cheats, the irrevocably defeated, have had many spokespersons in modern rock. The Midgets are better tenfold. The lyrics explore depravity and unredemptive misery ("And let it sleep?Why don't you give me what I want", from Fabric), sexual frustration (especially in Faux Pony and Listen). Interlarded with these searing statements, there are a handful of stunning instrumentals (Chains and Third Chair being the best). The glorious aspect of this album is its willingness to irk while entertaining. Some will remark on the discordant nature of much of this album; with a crimp of the imagination, though, it can be seen that the album's effect is reliant on this discord. The album is purposely dissonate, providing a harrowing reflection of the universal tormented mind. A stupendous feat. Judging from the group's longevity, though (their first album was released in 1982), this is all too be expected from this powerful group."