Review Summary: Everytime, I Love Work are the highlights
Butterfingers is an Australian rock/rap group who came to prominence in the early 00's with their album Breakfast in Fatboys which got a lot of airplay on alternative rock stations and firmly cemented the group as a solid live act on the live circuit. Breakfast at Fatboys is a pretty damn good album, a solid slice of Aussie hip-hop intertwined with Aussie rock that has a number of really solid songs on it.
Hook Up is the opener, a cheery, riff-laden stomper of a track that has some great verse sections and an awesome chorus. "Evil" Eddie Jacobson provides some great lyrics, his voice is very forward but not dominating, with lines like "ate marijuana cake for breakfast" it's tight. Mandarines is great, incredibly joyous synth lines permeate throughout with some great rapping, I really enjoy the lyrics on this one. Everytime is the big song here, with a massive rotation on Triple JJJ the song is based around a loop of a mobile phone ringtone whilst the lyrics sing about a guy who pretty much fails at everything -
"Everytime I give a girl an orgasm, she fakes
Everytime I jam it in, the condom breaks
Everytime I gamble, I lose all my chips
Everytime I eat "All Bran" I get the ***s"
The rhythmic pattern is really slick, and the song just rules and is very popular. Yo Mama is a dedication to all the MILF lovers out there (your mamas on the top of my things to do list!). As you can tell most lyrics here exist in the realm of immature brilliance, Girl from Gore is another rocker. Is It Just Me? is one of my favourites, a beat centered around waa guitar is funky as all hell, poignant lyrics here (is it just me or do the days go faster they don't seem to last as long as they did back when I was a kid, the world was infinite, every river was a sea, every second was minute or is it just me?). It touches on some political lyrics (is the leader of the country some kind of weener?). Hurt Me So Bad, is a slow acoustic track, but it makes a nice change for the pace of the album. Sorry is another rocker, but more fused with the hip-hop this time with a tremelo synth existing throughout and a cool verse (sorry, just trying to be nice, you can call me mother***er!). Piss On Ya is interesting, it is a sample based track with a lack of lyrics which uses the Speakonia program (think Stephen Hawkings or Fitter Happier by radiohead) to cool effect. Smell You on Me is another rocker (to be honest, most of these sound the same, but its a good sound), Snatch and Grab is a cool hip-hop track with an exotic eastern sounding rhythm at the beginning, and Speak Your Mind a sort of bouncy, slow rock song with a crunchy palm mute riff. I skipped one track, which is without a doubt the best on the album, the other big song I Love Work. The song has a "folk" style to the lyrics, in a storytelling sense (though the music is by no means folk), but humourous as a guy wakes up early in the day and everything goes wrong as he tries to go to work. It's one of the best songs you can listen to on a bad shift at work, it pumps and gets you energised.
Breakfast at Fatboys is a great album, a great slice of some of the more unique music coming out of Australia. This would be an excellent band to see live.
