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Two men let loose with their imagination and a bunch of 70's session musician 'instrumental stylings' might sound like hell, I mean, there's even a credit for the Pacific Ocean! It's this body of water that waves the album off as a man in a sinking boat realises his fate. Don't worry though, by the next track he's playing the part of Gepetto inside the whale where he can 'cha-cha all day' and indeed he does! Confused? Intrigued? Both and more, but I'm not sure if you're meant to understand it, just enjoy. Bizarre samples and cheesy rhythms join hands and frolic for I'm Bad At Sports and continue doing so throughout. Poodleman sounds like They Might Be Giants singing a Norse horror story of a strange creature armed with shears who gives you a mullet while you sleep, causing the victim to cry 'if I'd wanted hockey hair I'd learn to play the game'. A classic. Donut finds a frustrated, hungry man trying to find enough change to get a snack from the Mobile Donut Store, accompanied by a Latin beat! It's not all jollity amid the syncopation though. Held talks of 'flowers of love, thorns of pain' for a misfit who's even excluded from his local coffee shop and after this the album takes a darker twist culminating in Song For America where the main rhythm is provided by a vocal loop proclaiming 'I am not obsessed with this' while more voices whisper ominously over a church organ, but don't be scared as he reveals that he was joking about the 'day of reckoning'. That's fine, but is Poodleman real? Buy this and make up your own mind.

Laurence Arnold
CWAS #6 - Autumn 2000

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