I'm an enormous fan of Meathook Seed's 1993 debut, Embedded. It's incredible. Mitch Harris from Napalm Death with Donald Tardy and Trevor Peres from Obituary? Sign me up. I'm in. But when Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth hit the streets in '99, Harris had returned with an entirely new lineup, and—at the time—I just couldn't hang, going so far as to call it "terrible alternative rock with shitty riffs and whining vocals".
I hadn't given the album a second chance in over a decade, but thankfully I held onto it, because now that I'm a grumpy old man who longs more than ever for the "good ol' days", that "terrible alternative rock with shitty riffs and whining vocals" is actually starting to sound pretty damn good!
Vocalist Christophe Lamouret still ventures into the peripheries of what I'd deem "irritating" territory on occasion, but overall this is actually a solid album. Musically it's excellent industrial-leaning metal that I'm quite surprised I didn't appreciate upon its release, and the quality of the songwriting tends to overcome the occasional shortcomings of the vocal performances.
"Dumb Show" is probably not the strongest track from B.I.B.L.E., but its dissonantly textured chorus wins big points with me, and it's a fairly accurate representation of the album as a whole—warts 'n' all.
Comments
I was huge on Embedded as a kid and I’m still a fan to this day. It was such a unique album and still holds up. That said, I didn’t even know this album existed! The song you posted is good and compliments what Mitch is doing today real well.
3.28.2014 | By www.halifaxcollect.net
The artwork on Embedded made it twice as good..
4.12.2014 | By Hidde
I was always fascinated by that album cover, I never understood what it actually represented. I also always wondered how Mitch Harris listened to that singer’s band and thought “Oh that sounds awful but I need to work with that guy who constantly exaggerates his lines”.
9.20.2014 | By Hororo