Punish Yourself - Behind The City Lights (Live)

"I don't know whether pleasure is better when guilty or not but sometimes you just have to eat your shame like a (veggie) ham and cheese sandwich I guess. I was listening to "Mustache Ride" by Foreskin 500 (an album I really like) a while back when my roommate accused me of listening to Rob Zombie. At first I was all "Am Not!" since I had discovered the album long before White Zombie was even broken up (if memory serves). Anyway, listening to the album in a contempory setting, fuck me if it does sound a little like the smelly dread rocker but I still thinks it kicks fuck you very much. Likewise here with Punish Yourself, this release is at times a blatant rehash of "Psalm 69" era Ministry with a bonus feedbag of Bile to keep it a little sleazy and even little juicy bits bitten out from Atari Teenage Riot and gasp, Prodigy. So yup it's commercial and sure it's derivative and even yes it is rather cliched at times (the lyrics for "Suck My TV" are .bomb enough you'd think they were lifted from some pathetic late period issue of Wired). But despite all of those pits and snakes this live recording has enough fun factor that I'm risking a trip to the chiropractor just for a chance to jump into the damn pit with the rest of the sweaty freaks. And catching a live event would definitely be worth expending some effort I expect. Sometimes you just gotta say screw "deep" and "thought provoking" and just rip it open and scream your head off. 

You get 11 tracks total for the price of admission with a tad over 40 minutes to mosh about to. Mosh is as a good a descriptor as any since this recording will definitely will have you wanting to lace up the boots if not at least wave your fist around a bit. "Rock n Roll Machine" is the first time on the disc where you will be looking under the CD case to see if Al Jorgensen is lurking there. It's not just reminiscent of, it's as close to (musically) as early Pitchshifter was to early Godflesh, practically a tribute band, low res sampling meets artificial guitar work meets heavily effected vocals. But considering how shitty everything past "Psalm 69" has been, having a decent new Ministry song or three ain't the worst thing in the world at all. Other influences push up higher in the mix on some tracks, the gabber frenetics of "Gimme Cocaine" roll around on your spine like an ATR vs. Butthole Surfers demolition if you can imagine it, an updated Lard sans the Jello Biafra annoyance factor and some gay sex thrown in to make it festive. 

"Night of the Hunter" is one of my preferred tracks on the release, especially since the punk rawk snarl is a lot higher and the goofy instrumentation has me grinning like I'm being splashed in the face with cheap beer by Bob VC at a classic Tit Wrench gig. Likewise, "old-brother-left-hand" pulls off some anthemic boot stomp that works as well at 130 clicks out on the freeway as alone in the dark in your bedroom with the headphones on. In fact the only down moments really are the stupid intro track plus a handful of turdish bits of stray MC-303 generica a la the non-guitar embarassments on "The Shape of Things to Come" by ridiculously over-rated The Refused. But in the context they are here, it's forgivable. 

On initial glance I was sure this was something I would hate, like when the viral marketer RIAA friendly scum try to slip the independent types some flavour of the microsecond nu-metal techno cross over shite. But D-Trash made a solid choice pushing out this release, it's punker than 99% of what's currently under that classification and honest enough to pull off the hero worship driving its riffing and beats. Nope, a solid bit of electronic rawk music that's as ready to blast out the window of a hot muscle car as pump up the adrenaline at an all night LAN party. Fun stuff." (Moron)