Ducks Battle Satan

If you hadn’t already figured out by the number of spelling errors on this blog, I’m often drunk when I post. In the interests of raising the standards and the fact that I won’t be getting my own copy for a couple of weeks, I’ve invited Seth (a reader of this blog) to write up his thoughts on a pretty exciting re-release. I’m not sure if I’m right but like myself, I think Seth is new to this noise/avant stuff. There is only one comment I’d make in addition to Seth’s thoughts and that is the fact that this is titled Volume 1 is a pretty exciting teaser that there might be more Sun City Girls re-releases coming our way. Take it away Seth.

The Sun City Girls are a bunch of guys from Arizona with not much to do other than make strange noises with distorted guitars whilst releasing numerous albums that are incredibly difficult to find. Which is nice, if you’re into that sort of thing. “You’re Never Alone With A Cigarette” is a singles compilation consisting of six songs that were recorded during the sessions for their most well-known album, “Torch of the Mystics”, and three previously unreleased tracks that all sound like something from a spaghetti western soundtrack (although with a LOT more distortion on the guitars). All of the songs are instrumental, except for “The Beauty of Bengazi” which seems to be sung in a made-up language.

Since the only release by the Sun City Girls that I had heard prior to this was “Dante’s Disneyland Inferno”, I didn’t really have much idea of what to expect from this album, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the material contained on it. The first song, “100 Pounds of Black Olives” consists of a cacophony of distorted guitar and bass that gets faster and louder until the fuzz overwhelms your ears, before slowly burning out. It actually seemed very reminiscent of some of the material from Can’s “Tago Mago”, especially the improvised guitar parts from “Paperhouse”. “Sev Acher” is one of the three Morricone-esque songs, the other two being “Amazon One” and “Wide World of Animals”, all of which are all fantastic and probably the best songs on the album. The sheer skill of the musicians is also worth noting, with the hyperactive acoustic guitar twang on “The Beauty Of Benghazi” and the hypnotic riffs contained within “Wide World of Animals” being excellent testaments to the impressive skill of the Sun City Girls. The only song I’m not particularly fond of is “The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria”, which just drags on for too long and seems to be a bit self-indulgent. It does contain some nice trumpet parts, though.

In conclusion, this album is a great starting place if you have even the slightest interest in exploring the vast discography of the Sun City Girls. All of the songs are enjoyable and the production is top-notch. Check it out if you can find it (or just steal it!*).

*You probably shouldn’t actually steal it, you might get in trouble or something. Not that you have much chance of finding it, anyway.

This entry was posted on May 15, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.