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"An Education in Rebellion" The Union Underground |
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Not that this is some kind of rousing achievement or anything but before I even heard a note I already knew what this was going to sound like just from the album cover… Dark, distorted and plenty ugly! One of Portrait's newest entries into the modern music sweepstakes comes compliments of Union Underground and hey… "Underground," how prophetic! "…An Education in Rebellion" leads off in a most displeasing manner-think of how disciplinary action was administered in the old days-and now forget the whole idea of a ruler across the knuckles… try a sledgehammer! And I'd love to compliment the lyricist here except for one thing… what lyrics? You can't make out a single word over the background noise! So far I'm hearing kind of a cross between Marilyn Manson and by song three, Limp Bizkit! Twisting, turning, writhing-a complete lack of melody but plenty of belligerence, and what would one expect from a "South Texas Deathride!" Okay, we're following the lead of early Coal Chamber now with the stomp and grind of Powerman 5000-as in "Turn Me on 'Mr. Deadman'" and this could well be the best of the bunch here! Do I detect a here today, gone tomorrow slant going on here? Great track that just fades to flames before giving way to "Until you Crack" and again this churning in your gut that seems inescapable no matter how hard you try… and I tried very hard. Anything that contains "rebellion" or "revolution" always gets my attention and now I'm groovin' to "Revolution Man" which passing over the last few is another of the better cuts here-begins sorrowfully enough then breaks into a flying rage in a blitz of riffs and nearly manageable singing… high-level metal psychosis to be sure! I shudder to think
how I might've turned out back in the day had I been exposed to anything
like this… but then again, we got condemned for listening to AC/DC
so what The whole disc just shudders and shakes, going nearly psychedelic toward the end on this "Trip with Jesus," and the cleverly porch-side swing and shift style of "Bitter" which looks like three years later, hard feelings still permeate to the surface of the skin. In closing, "The Friend Song" is easily the most rambunctious of the bunch, feeding off a frenzy of thrash guitar, vocal distortion and what nearly amounts to a catchy chorus soon drowned out in a wall of rage. All right class, everybody take your seats. For today's lesson we'll be discussing how many different ways there are to hack and slice your neighbor into nice, neat, bloody little pieces… Portrait Records : http://www.portraitrecords.com/ Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] P.O. Box 20252
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