I can’t decide if calling your band ‘The Beatniks of Babylon’ is an act of genius or idiocy. On the one hand, it’s utterly awful and I can imagine most people tossing the CD aside without even taking it out of the case. But then, you could also argue that by having such an atrocious name, T-BoB (as they will henceforth be known) have set the bar so low that the listener can’t possibly be disappointed. And that’s quite clever, surely.
However, by opening this six song set with a ‘dismantling’ of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’ which involves growling bass, the sort of non-descript reverb-drenched guitars that you usually hear when your bank’s call centre puts you on hold, and bongos (BONGOS!) they’re pushing it. Really, really bloody pushing it.
That travesty is followed up by a couple of original tunes which are so bland and desperately over-earnest that they wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack to an 80’s teen drama starring Molly Ringwald.
I don’t want to talk about what they’ve done to Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’.
The fourth track is another original, called ‘Big Business’, a ‘dark and deep reflection of contemporary society’ (their words- definitely not mine) in which the most insightful observation T-BoB can muster is that ‘big business makes the world go round’. Sigh.
Five tracks gone and barely a redeeming feature among them. I deserve a bloody medal for getting this far. Instead I get what sounds like Chris Rea murdering Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’.
Thanks a lot, T-BoB.
- The Beatniks of Babylon - 10 April 2009
- Eagleowl - 18 November 2008
- Attic Lights - 31 October 2008