For over 20 years, William Bennett's infamous Whitehouse have remained on top of the power electronics game. While countless acts worldwide (particularly in Sweden and the U.S.) cannot seem to make the musical step past "Thank Your Lucky Stars," Whitehouse has evolved into a far more sinister entity with superior production quality.
Trimmed down to founder Bennett and longtime member Philip Best (also known to noise fiends as the brain behind Consumer Electronics), the duo have unleashed a venom-spewing foray into the digital/analog hybrid noise sound initiated on their essential Mummy And Daddy and further explored on the somewhat disappointing Cruise. The album opens with a vengeance on "Why You Never Became A Dancer," a blistering track stuffed with harsh lyrics. Truth be told, the real fun of any Whitehouse album comes from trying to decipher the rage behind their menacing and profane lyrics. As usual, there are some lines that exude their dark humor, as on "Cut Hands Has The Solution," (a song apparently about self-mutilation/cutting) where Best bellows "Are you so much of a slug that you can't live without a fucking sundae?" Here, both Bennett and Best doubleteam the victim, with a barrage of questions and insinuations that almost come across like a perverse Scientology auditing session. Supposedly based on the murder mystery linked to gay British actor Michael Barrymore, "Wriggle Like A Fucking Eel," released months before the album as a 12" single, slings verbal abuse at Stuart Lubbock, a used boytoy who ultimately drowned in the actor's swimming pool—a "chlorine gargoyle." The only contribution from now former member Peter Sotos comes in the form of a tape collage of television news programs on child abduction and prostitution, similar to those on the last two albums. Overall, his exit from the group seems only to have intensified the project's overall mission and sound. Bird Seed is destined for my Top 10 list for 2003.
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