(Cooking Vinyl)
There's a strong 80s streak about New York punk band Cerebral Ballzy. From their name ? with its bad-taste echoes of such predecessors as Jerry's Kids ? through the pen-and-ink artwork, to their music, they echo the east coast hardcore of nearly 30 years ago, when US punk started interbreeding with the roughest end of metal. There's no attempt at sophistication, just a brutal rush through 12 songs in under 20 minutes. You don't need to be able to decipher the largely impenetrable singing of frontman Honor Titus to work out what the songs about: the titles (Don't Tell Me What to Do, Drug Myself Dumb, Cutting Class) do the job for you. The problem, though, is that to anyone who has heard the bands who inspired Cerebral Ballzy, this is all pastiche. It's fun, there's no time to get bored, but shorn of the context of first-wave hardcore ? a music that forever altered heavy guitar bands' approach to velocity ? it's a bit empty.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/28/cerebral-ballzy-cd-review
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