EYESORE: A STAB AT THE RESIDENTS

To my knowledge, this is the first tribute album to one of the most iirrevernt, sophisticated, funny and controversial bands on earth, THE RESIDENTS. And if their music is as strange and surprising as we know, the tribute album should follow more or less the same spirit of the band. And so it is, a surprising and unpredictable compilation of covers, more or less similar to the original ones.

Great moments of this record are HEAVY VEGETABLE cover of "Time´s up", "The Electrocutioner" (performed by THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282), our well known avant band U TOTEM playing a superb cover of "Sinister Exaggerator", the other more or less known band GIANT ANT FARM playing "Eva´s Warning" in quite a conservative but impressing way. Another interesting song is "Smelly Tongues", although this version had previously appeared in SNAKEFINGER´s solo albums, so their fans won´t discover a new version here, but those who don´t know, will have the opportunity to enjoy the great guitarist. Another impressive band, CHARMING HOSTESS, offer us an incredible and overwhelmig version of "Won´t You Keep Us Working" that stands as one of the best moments throughout the whole record. Another point of interest is the appearance of PRIMUS playing "Hello Skinny" (not their first cover, because they had also covered THE RESIDENTS in "Miscellaneous Debris)"; this song has also become, over the years, in one of their typical songs they play live. Another point of interest is the combo of both "You Yes Yes Yes You" (normal and reprise, by FIBULATOR and DRAMAGOLD. Finally, the last point of interest is a cover of "The walrus Hunt" (by SUPERCOLLIDER), the great merit of it is precisely the great difficulty to cover a song like that.

Of Course, in a record like these, there are also points less interesting. In the effort of creating a musical language similar to rthat of THE RESIDENTS, many bands suffer the danger of the meaningless weirdness (such as IDIOT FLESH´s cover of "Bach is Dead", PINK FLOYD THE BARBER playing a latinized cover of "Boo Who" or POXY BOGGARDS´ cover of "Shut Up. Shut Up!"). Unfortunately, other songs lack any interest (NON CREDO playing a strange remix of some THE RESIDENTS´songs, or some of the interludes performed by UBZUB, or MOMMYHEADS destroying the funny "Moisture", among others).

So then what about the record? Well, for those really interested in THE RESIDENTS music and particular unverse, this record is almost of compulsory buying, because of the great variety of bands (some of them quite famous: PRIMUS, GIANT ANT FARM, IDIOT FLESH, UTOTEM, AMY DENIO, SNAKEFINGER or CHARMING HOSTESS). For those who don´t know the band, getting this record could be a bit dangerous, unless you are interested in some of the bands playing; it is very difficult an approach to THE RESIDENTS music for non iniciated, so better start in other records. And for listeners in general, I consider this record as a great variety of artists playing one of the strangest music ever (some of them, as I said before, of great interest for prog lovers), and if you like risk, this record can provide you great moments, despite it can be a bit too long. For me it would be between 3 and 4 stars, buit closer to 4 than to 3, mainly because this is a compilation from which you can learn a lot.

p.s As a hidden track, there´s a live version played by THE RESIDENTS of "Benny the Bounce", a bonus for those who dared to listen the record in its enterity. Enjoy it!