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The Effects of Please-Kill-Me


Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – The Effects of 333

Browsing the web a few days ago, I was looking to see what a handful of my favorite modern bands were up to. Sifting through Wikipedia I came across Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s page to find they’d released a new album. I hadn’t heard anything about it but that’s because it had been independently released via their website earlier this November. I was excited to give it a listen but once I got it I was just down right confused. I should’ve known better once I found out the album was not just instrumental but a foray into a sad excuse for industrial music.

Known in the past for their Alt-Country stylings, most notably the 2005 hit single “Ain’t No Easy Way”, BRMC developed a rootsy rock style but on this album that’s completely thrown out the window. There’s no sense of any kind of musical creativity or ingenuity here, as a matter of fact it’s hardly even music. When I heard instrumental I set myself up for a bunch of heavy jams and sweet riffs but this isn’t even that, it’s just 50 minutes of dry ambience. There’s probably only one song that actually has an actual composition in it while the rest is spacey white noise. I don’t know if this is supposed to be some sort of artistic statement or what but saying this is an album and then charging people for it is just insane.

Reading up on the group I noticed that BRMC has once again been reduced to a duo with drummer Nick Jago’s second departure but that hardly matters on an album like this. There is no sense of a cohesive rock band here. There’s no sense of actual humans playing instruments, aside from very sparse guitar.

It feels like a total rip-off, but I can only imagine how pissed people that actually paid money for this are. BRMC are advertising some piece of shit experiment they made and selling it to people without giving them a chance to preview the tracks. Seriously, what a bunch of douche bags. This isn’t even as good as those Halloween CDs you buy for a party that make ghost noises. Simply put this sucks, this sucks mass.