With songs about drowning, roadkill, and nails in the head, the second album from Made Out of Babies finds the group assaulting the ears, leaving welts and bruises as tokens of affection.
Pummeling and abrasive, the album opens with a piercing scream that incites the band to unleash their fury. The guitar is crisp and angular, the bass nasty and gutteral, and the drums quicken the pulse with stringent emphasis. The band excels at switching gears with tempo changes and noisy asides that invigorate the main riffs when they return.
Because of the tone of the guitars, the fullness of the drums, and the structure of some of the songs, my first impression was that the group takes more than a few cues from The Jesus Lizard, although some of that can be attributed to the way Steve Albini recorded and mixed this material. Yet the band is far from merely imitative and has a strong sense of dramatic delivery to complement the vocals of singer Julie Christmas, and it’s her stylistic variations that give the songs their personality. Not only does her melodic approach change from song to song, but she also never rests on formula or cliché for articulation. In addition to having a number of different screams at her disposal, she’s seemingly possessed by evil spirits on “Mandatory Bedrest,” and whispers child-like on the beginning of “Death in April.” On “Out” she proves she’s not afraid to shred her vocal cords for the sake of the song. One of the tracks is a brief, instrumental lullaby that provides respite before the storm continues on “Mr. Prison Shanks,” with its weirdly beguiling riff. “Gunt” starts slow and brooding before the band erupts for the album’s harrowing finale.
The group isn’t afraid to take chances, from the songwriting to the cringe-inducing cover art, and it’s a risk that pays dividends. As unsettling as their exploration of dark subject matter can be, it’s also perversely pleasurable and cathartic.
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