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Two Ton Boa: Parasiticide
Kill Rock Stars, 2006
Rating: 3.5
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Posted:
September 13,
2006
By
Peter Landwehr
In 1999, Two Ton Boa released a self-titled EP of dark rock. Now its
debut LP Parasiticide is being released by Kill Rock Stars and shows
little stylistic change -- Sherry Fraser, the band's frontwoman and sole
composer, has remained true to her dark urges in putting together a grim
disc of rock for the Goth set.
The band's image isn't subdued: Fraser goes in for eye shadow and black
clothing, and song titles like "Serenade For The Crow That Fell" showcase
Goth sentiment. But theatricality doesn't make a lyric like "You could
swallow them whole / and feast on their invading souls" original, and
rhyming "breast" with itself indicates a lack of imagination. Ditto for the
three brief musical intros that suddenly break into stomping bass. A
playground chant and short piano ditty might sound different, but the
identical purpose and segue make them one.
Two Ton Boa invites comparison with the Dresden Dolls, as both Fraser and
the latter’s Amanda Palmer make themselves out as tough outsider girls who
broadcast intimate concerns through first-person songs. But where Palmer’s
mishaps feel specific to her, Fraser's tales are more generic: the song
about the cruelty of other girls, the song about the abusive guy, the songs
(two of them) about society and beauty. The anger and cynicism track along
such predictable lines that they don’t belong to Fraser but rather the
outsider she plays. She's less emo than angry, but still just a character.
The interesting thing is that the overarching image doesn't matter. Two Ton
Boa sounds good, better and more consistent than both fellow popsters and
higher-concept art-rockers. Fraser knows how to sing, and while production
adds that irritating sheen to her words, her range of styles (coos, yells,
multi-tracked duets) creates a sincere generic rage. And she enjoys herself,
brazenly dropping a suggestion that "you could be like Venus / and cop a
heavenly stench" like a line from a musical; she would appear to spend
nights with a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary. ("I call you Clyde, 'cause
you're a mack / In your coat and your pilfered hat / Hunting Bonnies with
your rat-a-tat-tat.") The band's sound, heavy with looping bass, drums and
embellishments at the choruses like tempo changes, pizzicato strings, keys,
and reprocessed vocals, drives the album forward at a steady clip. At 36
minutes, Parasiticide establishes its consistent sound of
dissatisfaction through stomping beats and ends before becoming maddeningly
repetitive.
In short, the album isn't high art, but it does what it wants with panache.
It suggests, in fact, that Two Ton Boa might actually have something in
common with not just the Dolls but the Darkness. After all, if that band
could bring back the pomp in rock because they were good at it and their
love is sincere, well, there might be room up on the stage for Two Ton Boa
to try and create its own revival, and to convince teens that being
generically angry is better than being generically emo.
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