Artist: The Flesh Eaters
Album: I Used to be Pretty
Label: Yep Roc Records
Release Date: 1.18.19
Reconvening the star-studded lineup that gritted its teeth and roared through 1981’s black-hearted, brawling A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die album, perhaps their finest hour, Chris Desjardins (aka Chris D.) leads grizzled Los Angeles punk-rock creeps The Flesh Eaters on another cinematic, seedy crawl through society’s dark underbelly.
Old haunts are revisited on the deliciously dusky and malevolent I Used to be Pretty, as Chris D. and company articulately reimagine several old Flesh Eaters’ classics with their own special voodoo. Adding edgy menace to the eerie vamp “House Among the Thickets” from 1999’s Ashes of Time, they also recklessly drive a fiery, souped-up “Pony Dress,” which debuted on the 1979 compilation Tooth and Nail, with a lead foot. More hair-raising thrills are found in burning remakes of Forever Came Today’s “My Life to Live,” charging hard with pounding piano and venomous riffs, and “The Wedding Dice,” a fast, tense riot whipped into a frenzy by crazed saxophone bleating. Meanwhile, a new version of “The Youngest Profession,” originally on 1991’s The Dragstrip Riot, skulks around like a drifter in bluesy, moody noir, as if hoping to meet Morphine’s dearly departed Mark Sandman in the afterlife.
It’s a wicked game The Flesh Eaters play on I Used to be Pretty, making a heavy, evil dirge of Fleetwood Mac’s 1969 nefarious “The Green Manalishi” and shaking up The Sonics’ “Cinderella” with a rumbling, hypnotic groove. With his wobbly, nervy voice, Chris D.’s vocal theatrics combine elements of Iggy Pop, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Nick Cave, heightening the anxiety and danger inherent in his evocative poetry, where desperation, spirituality and obsession are common concerns. And the perfect, finely tuned vehicle for all this sound and fury comes courtesy of The Blasters’ Dave Alvin on guitar and Bill Bateman on drums, X’s John Doe on bass and D.J. Bonebrake on marimba and percussion, and saxophonist Steve Berlin, now with Los Lobos and a one-time member of The Blasters. Chris D.’s wife, Julie Christensen, contributes bold vocals to the mix.
Dealing in explosive dynamics, this cohesive unit feels right at home in inky atmospheres and violent chaos, comfortable playing at any speed and keen on incorporating different textures into its strong, intoxicating brew. Two new tracks bracket the bedlam. The languid and velvety opener “Black Temptation” – occasionally erupting in a shower of sparks – and the slithering, 13-minute closer “Ghost Cave Lament,” which echoes The Doors’ mysticism, indicate The Flesh Eaters and Chris D. are almost impossible to kill.
—Peter Lindblad
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