Review Summary: Blakfish give us an inconsistent introduction to Death-Pop.
Death Pop. It never sounded like it was going to work, and to be 100% truthful, it doesn’t really. Throughout, Blakfish’s debut album you can’t help but feel the album could have been so much better. Saying that though, a few tracks are absolutely brimming with potential.
Let’s start with the positives. “If The Good Lord Had Intended Us To Walk He Wouldn’t Have Invented Roller Skates” is a fantastic track, combining catchy vocal melodies with an unpredictable structure, as with “Randy Sage - True American Hero.” These two tracks remain the most radio-friendly of the debut offering from Blakfish. However, don’t be fooled - the remainder of the album isn’t this ear-friendly. The raucous social commentary of “Ringo Starr - 2nd Best Drummer In The Beatles” also excels whilst being bone-crushingly heavy for the most part, before giving way to Blakfish’s finest moment of the entire album - a perfectly harmonized outro. However, the problem does not lie within these tracks…
“The Closer To The Bone, The Sweeter The Meat” is a gruelling four and a half minutes thrash, whilst being genuinely insulting towards vegetarians! “9th Base” is even more hideous, but this time they are screaming about being sexually perverted! Both these songs seem like a joke taken far too far. Although, it isn’t just the heavy songs which fall short of the mark. “I’m Laughing Now… But It’s No Joke” never seems to get going and is by far the quietest song on the record. Even the combination, of both quieter melodies and heavy thrashings on the other songs never seems to quite work for the quartet. Making the majority of the songs very incoherent, which really grates on the listener after a while.
For the most part, this album is offensive and the songs are often incongruous, but on occasions Blakfish really do shine. If only, Blakfish could of sustained the potential of “Randy Sage…” and they would have made one of the strongest albums of 2009. They summed up the album perfectly in “Ringo Starr - 2nd Best Drummer in the Beatles” - “It could be worse…”
