The Barbarellatones – ‘The Break-Up Ghost’ (Barbarellatones Records)
CD Reviews
Written by Gaz E
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 11:23
Robbie Quine, frontman for The Barbarellatones, records albums quicker than Def Leppard record hi-hats. When, on the first weekend of Uber Rock’s existence, I told you in the review of ‘Not Dog…Snow-Lion!’ that a new album by the band was winging its way over the Atlantic as I typed, I wasn’t lying. ‘The Break-Up Ghost’ landed in my inbox just as I pressed ‘enter’ on my keyboard.
I’m not really gonna complain about a constant stream of cool material from cool bands but, in the case of Robbie Quine, I hope that it isn’t working against him. The Barbarellatones recently got the royal radio treatment and had several songs featured on Rodney On The ROQ, but they were older songs – not old in the ‘years ago’ sense, but old in the ‘from the last record, is there a new one?’ sense. If the Mayor Of Sunset Strip can’t keep up with Quine’s output, then what hope for us mere mortals?
But keep up we must, and when I type ‘must’ I mean it. We must continue to support independent, talented artists like Robbie Quine or we deserve shit like the manufactured, talent show puppets who are drilled into our brains by a moronic media whose soul has been sold for filthy lucre. Quine’s androgyny is as big a question mark to the moron majority as there ever was, and his humour sails high over the white-washed heads of the automatons who laugh and laugh at stuff that they are told to laugh at. If you hear someone describe The Barbarellatones as an “acquired taste”, then acquire that taste.
If you somehow thought that Quine might have lost his gift for hysterically cool lyric writing in the several minutes between albums, your fears would be erased in the time it took you to laugh out loud – while dancing, of course – to opening track ‘Get Your Freak ON!’ Second track ‘Gothic City’ is, perhaps, the most atmospheric, dare I say, serious song that I have heard from The Barbarellatones in a long time. A truly great song that deserves to be heard by millions. Millions of undead transvestites, obviously. Has Robbie Quine gone serious on us? Has he hell! If ‘Gnarlie’, with the sound of its creator struggling to get through the song without cracking up, doesn’t convince you that Robbie is the laughmaster in faux leopard skin, then ‘Grab Your Ankles!’, with its lyrical lament to Shaft, sex dwarves and weight watcher cankles, will surely push you over the edge. This song teeters on the brink of stereo orgasm.
‘Easy Rider’s Gone To Hell’, ‘Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?’, ‘Cherish Glamazon At Your Service’ – not just great titles, but great songs. However, songs like ‘The Raven’, ‘Unfaithful Lover’ and the title track show that Quine can write some seriously good songs, with serious being the important word in that sentence. Fear not though, the dance remix of ‘Get Your Freak ON!’ will have you smiling like the bird from Fright Night before the album ends.
Uber Rock was started to celebrate the artists who have been criminally undervalued by an industry that eats its own. Artists who thrive under the radar of the trend-obsessed, money hungry monsters who haunt the world of the truly talented. We exist as an independent voice in a corporate wasteland, we exist to champion those who do what they want, make art in the face of adversity, walk the left hand path. Robbie Quine and The Barbarellatones check all those boxes and we will continue to support them. If you are the cool mofo that I think you are, you will too…..
Grab your ankles…..do it for the Queen