SIHTSH throw everything in the blender from NAPALM DEATH to BLONDIE. From SCRATCH ACID to MELT BANANNA. Bashing in with “People Hugging and Football” you get the feeling that you have heard 4 different songs crammed into one. For most listeners, this can get to be too much. However “Alpha Males and Popular Girls” contains enough aplomb to pull it off. I remember someone had the saying “It’s not that the band is too much for the audience, it’s that the audience is not enough for he band”. I have always liked that. It’s always fun to witness a band onstage fuck up unsuspecting audience members with a good progressive pummeling. A US Maple show I caught at a trendy Cabbagetown/Hotlanta dive in the late 90’s caught two thirds of the crowd scratching their collective craniums.

The band really starts stretching its pop sensibility with the chorus of “John Cleese and the Fountain of Youth”. Some of the rhythms and textures of “King Diamond in the Rough” bring to mind the GOREGUTS masterpiece “Obscuria”. That, along with FOETUS and mid 80s SWANS. Next up we have the death metal thrash mixed with GARY GLITTER glam of “Stoicism Conservatory for the Marred of Heart”. (Yeah I love name-dropping bands to show off my trivial knowledge of music as I rattle off the band’s cool song titles. Are we noticing a pattern? This review may be getting a little repetitive so let’s take a moment to realize that as another nerd scribe in an endless sea of music nerd scribes that…well forget it.) All right, as Jack Parr (Hawaii 5-0) said during a long day of commercial voiceover work, “Let’s just admit that we a getting awfully close to burnout”. My attitude may change drastically (as usual) when the next batch of music comes my way.

I do not know what’s better. “Sherman Tank-flavored Anvil Forcefeedings” as a title or the music itself. It surpasses the previous tracks, impossible as that may sound. The action finishes itself with ever-angelic “Persuasive”. This is the only composition here where the arrangement has more flowing dynamics. It’s too bad there is not 2 or 3 of these “chasers” to follow the super ruff stuff. I wish I could say this is a masterpiece of the same caliber as the aforementioned GORGUTS disc, but the band is not quite there yet. Pretty close though. After a fourth listen yours truly is still interested. I assume the next disc will top this one. Oh, and for you people who care about such things, the singer is a hot chick.

- Herring

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/soihad

RELATED ITEMS: No related articles at this time.