Label: 13th Moon Format: CD
There is something at once comfortingly ordinary and outrageously Other about Alien Sex Fiend – the extraordinary seems such a part of the Fiends’ image that they wear it to the point of blending into the landscape of the musical landscape. Nik Fiend has always delivered his barbed couplets and blokish paranoia with the deadpan conviction of the geezer down the pub who lets everyone know just what’s wrong with the world in a highly entertaining manner, while Mrs Fiend gets on with providing the backdrop of sinuous, twisted electronic sounds as the instrumental powerhouse behind the ASF throne. Information Overload is their long-awaited follow up to the Techno trip of Nocturnal Emissions some seven years back (four if taking the improved and expanded Special Edition from 2000 into acount), and takes their sound into the Twenty-First Century proper with yet more devious purpose and infectious appeal.
When Nik snarls a catchy chorus of “Rape and Pillage in the global village” in the opening title track, his words twist the bitter knife of helpless rage at a world in self-inflicted flames and struggle, setting the scene for a familiar rampage through the ASF concerns – inequality, sex, pharmecuticals, mania and a hefty dose of simultaneous love for and loathing of humanity – it’s no wonder that there is a mocking “Parental Advisory – this record contains Nik Fiend” notice on the cover, though the bleeps inserted into “Motherf*cker Burn” seem an odd step for a band who have never shied away from a little swearing and seem a little unlikely to be too concerned about radio airplay being a problem, especially given the lyrical content of other tracks. Whatever the case, the mix of Rock’n’Roll and delerious electronics is especially evident here, with chugging riffs giving way to an elevated mid section of lilting synthetic voices, acoustc guitars and trippy vocal effects before crashing back gently to earth and the Dubby sensuality of “Baby”. This is a track where Sex Fiend have harnessed the bass walk and chopped up Reggae beat to an orgasmically-moaned intro into a typical psychedelic stomp sparked up with scrawling guitar and drum machine handclaps.
Throughout this album, the Fiends display their experience and magpie appropriation of any genre fragments for their own ends – “Gotta Have It” churns to a distorted gunshot Dancehall rhythm overlaid with all the Punky attitude (and guitar) they’ve held dear to their devious hearts since The Batcave days and beyond. The more they borrow and upgrade, the greater the Fiends’ abilty to pummel abd bemuse becomes, as is ably demonstrated throughout – where one effect will do, Mrs Fiend pushes it to the limit while Nik lets loose the scrapings of his psyche until the archetypes wriggle to the point of barbed simplicity, as he screams “It’s all for me – Fuck you!” as the song writhes and snarls to a peak of volume and egotistical mania suitable for a stage persona which sometimes manifests (as depicted in the CD booklet) as a grim comic-book Nosferatu. “Kiss Arse” and “Voices In My Head” flip into the other side of madness, mashing up digital percussion and bass in a dub frenzy of doubt and uncertainty, mapping the tortuous pathways of existential collapse on an electronic grid of recursive drum loops and multiply-devolved voices until the sense of delerium is palpable. The latter’s dreamlike state of drift and breathless descent through ambience and squidgily pulsating reflection marks a slowdown to Earth approach, Nik coasting in on the wings of his missus’ digital heavenly choir – “it’s like a symphony playing in my mind, playing over and over… those voices in my head”.
As with any good symphony, there’s a return, a coda in the shape of the upbeat groove of The Doors‘ “Five To One”, which conjours both the pilled-up bombast of The Happy Mondays and the harder sort of dancefloor Trance the Fiends were so fond of on the “Evolution” and “Tarot” singles, complete with speech synth and overlaid wailing guitar. As they traipse off into a brightly scrubbed new world with a flicker of delax FX, ready for another trip next time, Mr and Mrs Fiend can be proud of their recapitulation of the lysergic world of ASF on Information Overload. It is an album which has at least equalled the manic peak of the ecstatically-mindblowing Open Head Surgery while pushing their music yet further, something which Nocturnal Emissions in both its editions never quite achieved with the same degree of success, and as such is recommended to space cadets everywhere.
-Linus Tossio-
