Review Summary: Fear came straight out of hell (or the L.A punk scene so to speak) to deliver a heavy rocking and sometimes quite humorous album which featured a lot of experimental elements and most importantly: heaps of fun.
Fear - More Beer
1985, Fear Records/Restless
Line-up:
Lee Ving (vocals / guitar)
Philo Cramer (guitar)
Spit Stix (drums)
Lorenzo Buhne (bass)
Who is Fear?
Formed in 1977, the year of punk, Fear sent themselves on a mission to become one of the most relentless and furious hardcore punk bands of all time. They had infamous appearances in "The Decline of Western Civilization" and "Saturday Night Live (SNL)", tearing down the house like nobody else.
The Album
"More Beer" is the second Album by Fear, which was released after their first smasher "The Record". It has a very strong edge of experimental elements throughout the whole album which gave them a somehow weird but very cool sound.
"We're not recording right now? Are We?"
"Yeah"
opens the first song of the album entitled
The Mouth Don't Stop which is a classic Fear song which features good dirty rocking in a more relaxed fashion. It has their very typical lyrics where they rant about always brabbeling women and their yelling.
The trouble today with women
The mouth don't stop
Responsibility has definitely a more harder edge while it delivers very good moments to sing along which is always a huge plus and a great skill they had. Hard rocking, funny, catchy and experimental songs.
Speaking of experimental, the third track [B)More Beer[/b] features exactly that part very strong. It opens with the main guitar riff which has a slower part to it where Ving sings "All I want is more beer, more beer". The song rocks very heavy and it's just fun to yell along with. At the end of the song we get a moment which sounded extremely emotive with a tragic undertone, dragging guitars and Ving begging in hilarious fashion for one more beer, before closing out with the main chorus. It's the highlight of the album and an excellent track.
It's intermission time with the fourth "song" entitled
Hey. It's a short 40 second song with the band yelling "HEY!" throughout the song. The main sound of the whole album is extremely hard to describe as it has unbalanced sounds. Sometimes just straight rocking and the next second just suddenly slow drumming and weird sounds just like in
I am a Doctor. Fear managed to create a sound on this album that was way ahead of their time as funny as it sounds. Strong experimental elements connected with hard rocking, great riffs and brilliant refrains.
The humour is a huge part of the band and in this album as well.
Bomb the Russians is a prime example for it. A satirycal, hard and heavy 50 second song which features a knock at the idiocy of the US Government and stating them like complete fools.
bomb the russians then they'll never get to you
bomb the russians then we'll see who buries who
strike! while the iron is hot
strike! they won't get off a shot
strike! so our bombs from space
protect the all american race
strike! give 'em one more for me
strike! put it on t.v.
strike! cause the "duke" would do it
he would make the russkies chew it
Waiting for the meat is as weird as it can possibly be. A sweet and fast hard rocking intro which went into an out of space 3 minute bit with bongos which sounded like it came straight out of Africa. Lee Ving yells the most insane gibberisch of all the time and leaves you completely perplex and speechless.
EINS, ZWEI, DREI!
yells Ving and introduces us into the last track called
Strangulation. It's a classic Fear song. A heavy rocking two and a half minute song delivering great guitar work once again completed with absurd lyrics talking about mutilating and just manhandling women. As funny as it sounds, Fear produces such an overwhelming and catchy rock sound that you can't help to sing along with. That's what made them absolute fantastic. Packaging sick stuff into fun 2-3 minute rock songs.
