THE LAND OF THE GIANT DWARFS

4,5 stars really!!!!

How to talk fittingly of the craziest album X-L S ever made? With their fourth album (fifth if you count the shared album of 91), X-L S reached their pinnacle (and IMHO, this is one of the top ten records to have come out of Belgium) and they will never find out how to top this album. Already, the bar was set rather high with the previous Eggs And Ashes, but here another level was easily reached. Can you imagine Miriodor and Interference Sardines with twice as many musos and allowed to sing whenever they wish (which is not often, but always dutifully chosen at appropriate moments) and constantly aim towards Zappa humour and songwriting? If yes, you must be completely insane and might just be ready for such a flabbergasting album.

Whether the concept of this album is a concept or not, you will be confronted by the main character's, Yesbody, adventures and some rather hilarious sexual education bits (such as inciting women to take up ownership of their clitoris ;-)o) along with fabulous musical landscapes that pushes back Capt Beefheart to his crib and sees eye-to-eye Monsieur Zappa. From the very first burping sounds leading into some familiar national anthem, to the very last notes of the jazzy outro - which is actually the intro of Yesbody's exploits-, we are facing an incredible journey that knows no bound in sanity or any other artistic/musical means. Can you think of someone crazy enough to write a track called Mono Dolby? X-L S does it!!! Although we are clearly in the rock domain and although you can feel these guys are jazz musos that have been classically trained, the whole album is clearly a GAS from start to finish.

Need I say more as a mean of closing remarks???

I think not!!!!!!!!!!!

If the question is "Which Avant band had the best run during the nineties?" X-LEGGED SALLY is no doubt in that conversation. From Belgium they released five studio albums plus a live one during that decade, and all are high end recordings. I regret not grabbing them all back in the day, but managed to pick this one up from 1996, and the previous one "Eggs And Ashes" from 1994. A rather large band of seven with three horn players including leader and main composer Peter Vermeersch. I prefer "Eggs And Ashes" to this one, but it's a matter of taste.

They've gone further down that "explicit lyrics" road here, but this band has always been about humour, and Zappa is their influence both instrumentally and lyrically. Although I did think of those crazy Swedes SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA with the blasting horns and high energy sounds. They actually expanded to an eight piece here, adding a vocalist who would be on "Fired" their live album released the same year as this one, but he won't be on their final 1997 recording. Interesting though that they added a string quartet for that final one.

A lot of short tracks here with 18 of them over 58 plus minutes. We have some guest chapman stick on the song "Hair". And that is actually my favourite song on here for that funny intro and those vocals that are full of character. I also really like "Fes II" for those deep rhythmic sounds, and it's quite powerful. Least favourite is "Skip XXI" and I have skipped this one. The conversation is not my thing on this one. Reminds me of Canadian Sue Johanson, an older lady who was a sex educator up here and on the radio. One of the many somewhat famous people I met when I owned my own business. Funny lady. Just not my kind of humour.

Avant fans need to hear this band, and the cool thing is that you can't go wrong with any of their six recordings. A solid 4 stars.