Review Summary: The honey tastes sweeter when you anger the bees, the moon is disgusting, it's made out of cheese.
That 1 Guy is Mike Silverman, a California based classically trained musician who is best known for having built his own crazy performance instrument known as The Magic Pipe. It's a daunting contraption to look at, and one unfamiliar can only wonder the spectacle of a live performance (he has gotten a lot of praise for stealing the show from the likes of Buckethead, which is no mean feat).
The Moon Is Disgusting is his 2007 follow-up to debut
Songs in the Key of Beotch, sporting a ridiculously awful title and album cover. This is completely intentional I assure you, and is not a bad thing at all once the music kicks in and you realise hell, this is surprisingly good. Opening track
The Moon Is Disgusting has shades of Les Claypool in it's plucked intro, building up to some sinister sounding synth parts which ultimately comes off as something like Primus gone industrial. The lyrics are catchy as hell, Mike's stoner delivery on the verses straightforward amusing as he fires one nonsensical line after another (
the honey tastes sweeter when you anger the bees/the moon is disgusting, it's made out of cheese). It's an exceptionally solid track, unfortunately the rest of the album doesn't fare so well.
The rest of the album keeps a uniform sound, which could be seen as a good thing if you like That 1 Guys signature sound or a bad thing if you want a bit of variety. The vast majority of tracks here such as
Bananas,
Mash,
Guara and
Mustaches all feel like some kind of mutant disco with odd instrumentation,
Buttmachine (the most popular track off the album) definitely the best of the lot of these. Stuff like
Oranges,
Jigsaw and
Dig vary it up a little sonically but tend to rely on a driving, seasick funk which persists throughout the entire album. Mike's lyrics are mostly centered on nonsensical rubbish, which does get tiring throughout but he has a good vocal delivery and it fits well with the style of music being played. The only real surprise on
The Moon Is Disgusting is closing track
Rainbow, which is a long ambient electronic track which approaches the 15 minute mark and is unlike anything else on here. In terms of consistently it probably hurts the album a little, but it is good nonetheless.
Mike Silverman and his crazy magic pipe makes That 1 Guy certainly an artist of interest, at the very least
The Moon Is Disgusting features a number of solid tracks which unfortunately are mostly indistinguishable from one another on first listen. The title track however is worth it alone, and tracking his activities in the future might be a wise bet as this is one act just bursting with potential.
