I bought the third ((and best)) Urinals 7”, with “Sex” and “Go Away Girl” ((fairly logical couplet, that)), when it came out circa 1980 or ‘81, its crazy fucking thunderous raw basement smashing was a revelation—an absolute overload of VOLUME and POUNDING and the types of acoustical traits that drive “real” sound engineers to the bughouse. The next song I heard was “She’s a Drone,” off the Life Is Ugly So Why Not Kill Yourself compilation, which kept the minimalist frenzy going, but sounded like it was being tapped out on Quaker Oats® containers, thus was still cool, but in a much different manner. They then changed their name to 100 Flowers, got artier, and lost my interest, although I did like their early song “Salmonella” okay. They apparently put out an album as the Urinals in 2003 which I managed to ignore entirely, which brings us up to the immediate now. I think this record is pretty cool—it doesn’t sound like a basement full of metal garbage cans being kicked around by pelicans, or some homeless nut banging on oatmeal containers—it all sounds pretty “normal,” give or take—but all the songs are good, reasonably memorable, and generally to the point. The range of bands of which I am reminded during the course of this album ranges from the somewhat logical ((Gun Club, Guided By Voices)) to the unexpected ((Reducers, They Might Be Giants, Jason and the fricking Scorchers??)), but it’s all sort of knit together logically, in one big happy urinal. This album will not save your soul, but it will add a fresh urinal cake to the pee-sodden porcelain of your existence! BEST SONG: “Close Our Eyes” BEST SONG TITLE: “This Song Is a Virus” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: Gleert & Simka appear courtesy of Finn-a-Fon Diskq!
–norb (Happy Squid, happysquid.com)