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The Goons Of Doom were childhood friends while growing up
in Australia. Lead singer Ozzie Wright and his wife/bass guitarist
Bang Bang Bunny Fang are the core of the band. Rounding out
the group are Vaughan Dead and Killa Whale on guitars
and Cut-throat Cowboy on drums. The five formed a band on the
set of Ozzie's film Wasted Youth in 2003. The storyline was
about a group of surfers who played in a band. The experience sparked
an urge in the cast to be a real band, to really make original songs
and to play in bars, clubs, and at parties.
In 2005, Goons of Doom released their first EP Bikey Zombie.
This year they put out their first full length album The Story
Of Dead Barbie And Ghost. Like the band they portrayed in the
movie, they used the same rawness and gritty applications in their
songwriting. Not knowing how to play their instruments back in 2003
when they formed, they learned to play, and their debut album displays
their minimalist craftmanship and caricature style vocals with numbers
like "Devils" and "Dope City In The UK." There
are theatrics in the vocals like Iggy Pop and the Sex Pistols
with a copious amount of garage rock, '60s style neon Britpunk, and
horror pop reefed with similarities to The Rocky Horror Picture
Show.
The '60s influences are rampant on songs like "Bikey Zombie"
and "Broken Toe" which show masonry familiar to The Raveonettes.
The adolescent imbibed lyrics are hokey like "Dead Barbie And
Ghost" with a gutter-rock verbose. The thrash/punk whips on "VD"
are repetitive and switch gears on "My Song" as Bunny's
vocals purvey a Sleater-Kinny tincture. The vocals on "My
Car" shout as Ozzie and Bunny's singing tangles into heaps while
the guitar vibrations scream around them. There is a folksy quality
to "Leaving Song" like The Libertines and amusing
vocals on "It Stinks" supplying harmonica and trombone sessions
with a cask of soft rock motions.
"Ballerina" ambles with male and female vocal interplays.
There is a sameness in "Ballerina," "Wimps," "Lambs
Heart" and "Hello Kitty", like they ran out of ideas
about where to take their music, but they keep a neon vocal glow through
the tracks. "The Ass Kisses The Face" fires with rankling
vocals and racy guitar churns. The final track "Fingered"
offers neon Britpunk plushness with horror pop emporiums. There is
a showy, garrulous quality to the song like in the Broadway show Dance
Of The Vampires. The album is all show and antics and inspires
others to follow that path of abandonment to impulsive behavior.
Goons Of Doom have a free spirit with a cartoonish character something
like The Flaming Lips and the UK's fictional band The Young
Ones from the early '80s hit series. Goons Of Doom are about having
fun and picking on society's images of beauty like Barbie. It's something
that adolescents do to hide their insecurities, which is what their
audience may identify most about them.
-Susan Frances
Tracklisting:
1. Dope City In The UK
2. Bikey Zombie
3. Broken Toe
4. VD
5. Dead Barbie And Ghost
6. My Son
7. My Car
8. Wimps
9. Devil
10. Leaving Song
11. It Stinks
12. Ballerina
13. Lambs Heart
14. Hello Kitty
15. The Ass Kisses The Face
16. Fingered
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