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December 11, 2024

Review

Controversial band’s latest album fails to live up to hype

October 19, 2007

Controversial, as described by the all-knowing Webster’s Dictionary, is defined as “of, subject to, or stirring up debate.”  Why does Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy describe themselves in the same way?  The answer: their music is too boring to attract any attention.

Their publicists are obviously trying to attract music listeners’ ears by mentioning how the band’s new album, Gospel Hymns For Agnostics and Atheists, has been banned from college radio stations and radio managers have prohibited their deejays from pronouncing the band’s tag, “the Imperial Orgy” on airwaves.

Here’s a better question: who gives a shit?

The only controversial aspect of their music is how they managed to get a recording studio willing to sign them on, unless of course, controversy consists of mentioning Jesus once or twice, only in reference to a cross. Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Their music, while not completely terrible, leaves a lot to be desired. Caeser Pink sounds like Morrissey with an awful lisp, while his backing band is a light version of The Red Hot Chili Peppers with female backup singers who tend to stray out of tune.

The biggest problem with the band is their lack of insight. Music should be a tool an artist uses to convey a message to their listeners that gives new insights and epiphanies. Or at least something that makes your feet tap. Caeser and his orgy provide none of this.

Take their opener, “The Amazing Tenacity of Job and His Brethren,” a song obviously about people as hypocrites, as the band sings “We preach what we lack…We curse what we sow…And people are the opposite of what they show.”  Well, duh.

The rest of the three songs (yes, the album is four songs long, clocking in at about eighteen minutes) are a snooze of gibberish attempting to sound more prophetic than they are. “Compassion is a parable…Spoken by a tongueless monk” Caeser says on “In Praise of Shadows,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. If only the band would concentrate on what they’re trying to say, instead of how.

The only truth in the entire album is in the final song, as the entire bands chants, “These are our happy endings…It’s the best we can do.”
Yes, it would seem so.

Matthew Loosbrock is a student at UW-River Falls.

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