foetus - hole, nail, thaw, male, gash, sink, boil, null
(aka foetus uber frisco, foetus art terrorism, scraping foetus off the wheel, you've got foetus on your breath, the foetus all nude review, foetus interruptus, foetus inc. etc etc)
too many names to mention at present. foetus could have his own category.
I love the indescribable style that jim thirlwell aka clint ruin aka frank wants applies to his twisted studio creations.
for a start, the voice is very distinctive, from rough growl to a noir version of tom waits via many dark and unmapped detours. for those that aren't aware, the cutting edge musical backing is likewise seriously diverse in styles. orchestral scores to riff-metal to big band jazz to ambient, sometimes all in the same track.
for me the main deal is the late night nightmare soundtrack nail, but foetus fans are always arguing over this topic. will try and put more down in the future.
note - best avoid 'boil' a live release which sounds terrible. more info available from official site below.
update :
have decided to briefly give my opinions on the above releases
hole : stunning classic, mad disco beats with superb darkly humourous puns, the music has references to many well known styles (batman theme/surf riffs) outstanding track is 'meet you in poland'
nail : more dark than hole, not as fun, more orchestral, lp has to be digested as a whole, the production is where jim really has learnt his trade on this release. for me 20 years after the albums release this is still the classic lp.
thaw : wow - the nastiness is very apparent on this, even the cd looks as if its going to rip off your arm ! biting anger superb melodies/variation - the build up to the climax in 'prayer of my death' is just too tantilizing by half.
these three releases, along with the spin off project wiseblood, are absolutely perfect in every dark way
male : a great double live summation of foetus so far. great sounding disc.
gash - well well - the underground attempts to be loved by the masses. released via sony ! cd is more 'noisy' almost following the new nin-style sound (even though nin ripped it from foetus in the first place) and so looses some of the required subtlety needed to appreciate jims tortured melodies. there are some standout tracks - 'mighty whitey' and the superb 10 mins plus of mutant jazz 'slung', as i strongly believe that when jim gets jazzy, the world stops spinning. admittedly, this major debut is not as consistent as previous stuff, there are several tracks which are just too much - production overload, messy instrumentation, but hey it's still got the foetus stamp, which makes it worthwhile of investigation.
sink - great compilation of foetus's 12" tracks - must-have purely for bedrock
boil - not impressive live release, sound is just too muddy, shame.
null - ep of stuff from gash, excellent snapshot of the time. some pointless remixes with several tracks not from the gash lp, much more raw/simplistic than the lp.
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