Review Summary: A typical album at first, but quickly becomes a great accomplishment in metaphorical songwriting.
Torso***. What can I say about this band that hasn't already been said? Tosro*** looks like a simple grind band at first. Simple Chug, Chug, Chug of the guitar. Pounding double bass, and vocals that cannot be understood. But, if you dwell deeper into the band, examine all the lyrics and how everything fits together with the structure of the music and overall metaphorical impact of the parts, you can see how this band is one of the most intelligent and clever of this era. Erotic Diarrhea Fantasy is an album with many, many different views and many, many different interpretations. But look down to its core you see all the songs represent society and it's flaws, misrepresentations and it's general ignorance of the truth.
Possibly the greatest and most obvious of these elaborate metaphors is the track "Raped By Elephants". If you look into the lyrics, you can clearly see it represents a foreigners journey into and gaining citizenship to the united states. The tourist in this track is the foreign alien trying to gain citizenship into the US, while the three elephants are the three branches of the US government under republican lead respectfully. The act of the elephants raping the tourist is Torso***'s interpretation of the governments stopping of the application and overall pain of the process of application. Every line of this song has a meaning, take for example the final line " I'll never go to Africa again." This represents the immigrants broken spirit at the end of the long process just to be told "No."
Other songs have less apparent meanings hidden within. Four-legged Whore represents the dangers to animals with overpopulation. The title track is a metaphor for the human emotion of wanting something no matter how impossible it is. Fist***ing Her Decomposed Cadaver is a call against Spousal Abuse. And Snuffed Freak is a warning against the dangers of addiction to internet pornography.
However, this album is not just about lyrics but its music as well. Unfortunately this is the only downfall of this album. Some of the riffs are repetitive and the drums are overpowering. His vocals are sometimes sloppy and out of place. Other times the musicianship is spot-on. The guitar riffs on "Raped By Elephants" is perfect and vocal timing is out-of-this-world. The Albums also includes samples on every track. Mostly in good doses like "Four-legged Whore" and others not-so-much such as "Cannibal."
Overall, this album is a buy if you are fan of good songwriting and metaphorical lyrics. Torso*** shows us what great, clever and intelligent lyrics are, but they fall short of setting a perfect album because of the sometimes lousy and sloppy instruments. But noting the previous flaws; the album is still a great and sets the bar for Torso***'s songwriting prowess.
