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Four Deadly Questions & The
Answer Lies You can also find this release at these fine stores:
Four Deadly Questions bash you over the head with gritty punk that ingraines it's catchy hooks into your brain and then The Answer Lies brand of breakneck speed plus old school punk and a dash or four of yelling matches kicks your teeth in! TRACK LISTING
::REVIEWS:: Q: What's flat, shiny and sounds like trashy coed Brooklyn punk and nail-spitting hardcore from Las Cruces? A: The new CD split from Four Deadly Questions
and The Answer Lies! $8 at GC Records (www.gcrecords.com). Today has been one of those days. Well, not just today, but this semester as a whole just keeps piling on top of me. Like some poor bastard in a Mike Judge script, every day of my life seems to be worse than the last. I hate school. I'm tired of reading more than I sleep. I hate answering to professors who get paid to be dickheads. I'm sick of people telling me what to do. This split is the soundtrack of my day. And God help me if it is, but quite possibly the soundtrack of my semester. The confederation of Four Deadly Questions and the Answer Lies is easily the most appropriate pairing for a split since Bad Astronaut and Armchair Martian teamed up for War of the Worlds on September 11, 2001. Yet while the latter provided the soothing drawl of Jon Snodgrass and introspecticism of Joey Cape, the music on the Four Deadly Questions / the Answer Lies split is more suited for snarling lips and clenched fists. And better yet, both supply such with a sardonic sense of humor that can vindicate even the bitchiest of moods. Four Deadly Questions kicks off their end of the split with "Get Your Nunchucks and Your Dad's Car; I Know Where We Can Get a Gun." At 3:12, the song nearly doubles the length of any other track on the split, and starts slowly with a fairly routine AC/DC-like riff. Deceptively building on a measured -- though not altogether restrained -- verse, the band then launches into a male-female combo that somehow collectively channels Jello Biafra with Selby Tigers. After speeding through the buzzsaw hardcore of "All Things Inconsiderate," they return to a chunkier, riff-heavy rhythm for "Bottom Rung" that features a plodding cowbell and harsh but effective combination of raw-throated shouts paired with sweet female vocals. Four Deadly Questions hits their pinnacle with the bouncy hardcore of "Get Well / Funeral," which again capitalizes on the contrast of male and female singing styles. While Four Deadly Questions raced through their half of the split, the Answer Lies fly through their portion, pumping out five songs in six minutes. Their gritty, no-soap approach to hardcore is reminiscent of something like Zeke -- only if they were on speed instead of acid, and recorded in a dingy basement instead of the Blasting Room. Hosting song titles like "Pink Bandana," "Rewriting History One Water Tower at a Time" and "Blood and Fur," the Answer Lies punch through the speakers like a steel-toed boot to the teeth. "Political Song for My Emoticon to Sing" amusingly references the Minutemen, though sonically recalls more MDC or JFA than Boon and Watt, with a breakneck velocity and inaudible shouts. If shared pain halves the grief, then shared pissed
doubles the pissed. If and when I begin beating my head against
a wall, I will most certainly do so with the support of Four Deadly
Questions and the Answer Lies blasting through the speakers. Thanks
guys, I needed this. On this split, Four Deadly Questions
kick things off with a song that starts out like "Blue Orchid"
by the White Stripes. They quickly move on to successfully incorporate
other styles of punk, hardcore, and garage rock. The not-too-dirty-but-not-too-clean-mid-fidelity
recording and blown-out vocals suit the style, and there are great
girl vocals on a couple of the choruses, especially "Bottom
Rung." The Answer Lies is more straight forward in their approach
to punk-edged hardcore, and the "I gargle broken glass"
vocal style made me think of Filth. In fact, that's an apt description
of the music as well. Good stuff from both bands, with Four Deadly
Questions winning by a nose. Four Deadly Questions are a straight
forward punk band, incorporating the hint of female vocals here
and there, which, in the end, soften the overall crass-ness of their
sound. Not bad, and their riffs are catchy. Their bass sound is
classic and reminds me of The Chemical People’s sound which
is old school and brings a smile to my face. They are sloppy enough
to seem punk credible and I like them more with each listen. As
for The Answer Lies, they are a bunch of Japanese teen pop and pretty
much suck. Well, now that ain’t really the truth, now is it?
The Answer Lies continue to get better. I keep telling them the
more they scream and the less they sing the better. More speed,
more booze, and less of anything otherwise. Case in point here.
Five songs that rip right by you and leave no trace, nor any explanation
as to why your ass might be sore. Pretty good for a bunch of pricks. Five lo-fi rock n roll tracks from
New York's Four Deadly Questions and another five from New Mexico's
speed-punkers The Answer Lies. Of the two, the highlight in my opinion
is 4DQ - evoking the sound of the Selby Tigers and falling right
in the line of their NYC countemporaries The Shemps and I Farm,
they play shout-along garage rock anthems that lose no aggression
in translation from their rooftop shows to the recorded format.
The Answer Lies play not a single song that lasts two minutes in
length, and the CD is capped off with 30 seconds of "Thundercats"
outtakes, which once again begs the question, what the fuck is
a samophlange? The first song is titled "Get
Your Nunchucks and Your Dad’s Car; I Know Where We Can Get
a Gun" this is a good song. It makes me wonder if I can say
the right stuff about Four Deadly Questions’ songs so you
will go and get a hold of this split. The vocal parts are way good.
They seem to have two vocals going, not on every song, but enough
for it to be noticed as being rad. They are fairly distinctive in
and of themselves, like either singer could have a totally different
band with awesome vocals, but they are singing together and in different
styles, and it works well. You could mix beer with more beer and
get down to this stuff. The Answer Lies are straight out the box
wild eyed and arms flying, knocking down everything in your house
and when your shit falls to the floor and breaks it somehow becomes
better, more prized, but still broken. And you don’t care
cause that was only the first song. A few minutes later “A
Political Song for My Emoticon to Sing” plays and you think
it’s pretty tight and then you realize there’s only
two more songs on this split and you’ve written the whole
review in the time it took to listen to the thing, and you hope
you’ve said something good bout this CD. Here are two very well-suited bands
(other than the fact that they have questions and answer in their
names) because even though their approaches are different, their
direction and purpose is the same. Both bands create a hell of an
impact through simple and confrontational punk rock but THE ANSWER
LIES are the show-stealers of this split for me with their fast
and attacking hardcore punk that’s fucking spirited and wild.
They have the ingredients that make me drool and that excites me
and it’s hard to find bands that can still excite me these
days. FOUR DEADLY QUESTIONS are so close but THE ANSWER LIES just
have the edge over them in my opinion. In fact, FOUR DEADLY QUESTIONS
have the more interesting sound of the two bands but it’s
THE ANSWER LIES’ straightforward-ness that sucks me in and
won’t spit me out. Awesome split. |
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