With 80 minutes of original, solid material, I find it hard to believe there isn't something enjoyable here, but that's not the first time I've heard that and I can live with it. As long as you give it a chance to stand on its own, it should.
I must argue that the bassist and the drummer are phenomenal musicians. I drool over the drums and Jean on bass does some jaw-dropping basslines...The vocals are love em or hate em, and I love Greg's tweaked out insanity with Jean's backup grunts.
This album jumps all over the place, sounds wise and there are a lot of songs that tell stories... abstract stories. The Moth-Chew-Moth interludes are spastic reworks of the same tune, but make for good interludes.
We get a surf-rock ska-like opening with
Secretly Meaty before some insanity starts to break through. Return for a verse, and nice spazz out and bridge.
Soup is an ode to soup rife with time changes and the breakdown where I presume theres some snorting of some drugs going on before returning for a guitar solo and back to hook. Playful, corny, having fun... being savages on their respective instruments.
Spork is a funky, angry head-noddy tune
Phat Pig Phong should scare your grandmother. Kind of sounds like grandmother....
Cross Dress Crusade opens with some amazing instrumentation and Greg jumps right on top with wacky, fast-paced lyrics, quick breakdown, and back in
and madness.
Franchise introduces Francois, a recurring character in their works. He's not a good fella.
Little Squirrel and His Crack Pipe starts out like Macy Gray and works its way into another insane passage filled with drums-lead chaos. Love the drums on this track.
Family Jamboree, another sweet, loving interlude
Bowling For Midgets tells a heartwarming story about midget bowling and so on; Jean delivers one of the catchiest bass riffs on the album here. Bouncy.
Sadboy is one of my favorites; I try to sing along but its very hard to keep pace with him at times. "Lectern's legato but I'm the legatee of leeward lechery" was one of the strangest out of there. Drums here put me in a special place [breakdown]
Gazelle, won't you stay for dinner? You'll be my special guest! I won't take no for an answer, Kill the beast! It's good fun. Really takes you into this forested castle/cabin setting. Sweet bass riff, as usual (gave it some extra volume towards the end)
Santa Claus is Selling Crack has always been on my very small list of acceptable XMas songs. Ahh.... very enjoyable lyrics as far as I'm concerned, really dig the instrumentation. Pisses off people with proper spirit during the holidays. It's fantastic...
Supermarket was always a mediocre track, but my friends mom fell in love with it >.> thought that was funny. Carrots, zucchini, tampons, and film! "I saw James Hetfield at the supermarket."
Subliminal Smurf is a touching song about trying to get with Smurfette, not wanting to be human. Fantastic instrumentation.
Chernobyl Hampster opens with beautiful drum and bass. Pat on guitar lays down a smooth guitar riff with the bass is getting slapped pretty hard. The story of a super-hampster after getting radioactive superintelligence from Chernobyl. Cool story ;D
Rice-a-Roni the San Francisco Treat? I don't know if this song came on everyone's album, it's a bonus track I believe.
Three Legged Bunny starts off slow, and ends fast.
Parkay is a butter vs Parkay argument, Parkay seems to win.
Cup O' Maggots is a fun fast-paced instrumental ride
Molly Ringworm is the story of a grungy, nasty, crazy old lady that frequently rode their bus line. Opens up with mean licks and thrashy drums before going thrash-funky
Realities and Misconceptions of the Hair Club for Men is a goofy track, with a weird little guitar solo coming out of nowhere. Love how they made tracks about nothing sound so good.
Dead Things Come in Pairs is an outro-esque, completely deranged track. Screaming bandmates in the background while the vocalist chants "I've found god, and god was laughing". VI-CUNA! Whatever that means. Drummer is taking charge here.
Acid Chicken is a very solid track, though why it's at the end I'm not sure.
The order of the tracks perplexes me. This being their first album, with this much material, and having such a great way of working together, I have to give this a Very Good rating. It might not be for everyone, but I can guarantee listening to it with a playful, perhaps slightly insane viewpoint will offer you some smiles and some solid head nodding.
I've seen them perform live a handful of times, I've heard all their work hundreds of times, so I know I'm biased coming in here commenting on my own suggestion and rating it... I just hope theres someone that found it entertaining enough to enjoy. Nuclear Rabbit adds a certain level of happiness that I haven't found anywhere else, not even with Mike Patton's works. For all the love of the influences that inspired Rabbit I have, I hold Rabbit so dearly to my heart.
I'll be back in here to edit some of the song 'reviews' I did, as some of them were hastily done. Long album.
Also, for anyone interested:
Nuclear Rabbit Fansite - Lyrics
P.S. My internet got shut off for the last 2 weeks and I popped back on and saw the discussion thread