Bring on your Eminems, your Limp Bizkits and your ICPs. Line up your baggy-trousered, long-shorted, mask-and-makeup-wearing assholes. Send out your Slipknots, Mudvaynes and Stainds. JG Thirlwell will wipe the floor with them.
For twenty years, Mr. Thirlwell has specialized in combining raw, bloody-fisted brutality with gentlemanly sophistication, a little like the nattily-attired gangsters in Guy Ritchie's movies. He's made a habit of dishing up some of the heaviest industrial beats in the business -- and then using them as backing for spectacular big band numbers and noir jazz blowouts. It's an odd juxtaposition, to say the least, as Thirlwell's musical mastery is pressed into the service of swaggering, old-school sexual predators and broken-bottle-wielding back-alley brawlers in vomit-stained dress-shirts (songs like these must have played in the head of Russell Crowe's LA Confidential character). Whether he's recording as Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus or one of the many Foetus variations, Thirlwell knows how to deliver the goods.
Flow, like most Foetus albums, begins with a one-two punch. "Quick Fix" bludgeons you with guitars, drums and Thirlwell's sneering vocals. It's an unyielding display of musical brutality, thrown into sharp relief by "Cirrhosis of the Heart", which borrows its familiar melody and loungy mood from "Mas Que Nada". As stylistic juxtapositions go, it's almost ludicrous, but Thirlwell knows well how to sustain mood and identity through such extreme stylistic shifts.
"Mandelay", clocking in at a punishing eight minutes, should be required listening for all Nine Inch Nails fans who believe that Trent Reznor invented his strangulated vocal style. A mournful, Eastern European-style dirge melody hides among the clanging and banging, adding some substance and emotional resonance to the rhythmic aggression. Even more enjoyable is "Grace of God", which takes a dark, Barry Adamson-esque jazz tune and turns it into a massive, show-stopping production number. It's easy to imagine Thirlwell executing some fancy footwork among the blaring horns and crashing cymbals; indeed, tracks like "Grace of God" make me wish he'd write a musical some day.
For further riches, see the nervous pursuit anthem "Suspect", pairing JG's growl with edgy hand-drum action and syncopated orchestral stabs. "Someone Who Cares" has a little of everything: the lyrics are a string of catch phrases, the music a curious melange of horns, sitar, guitar and heavy keyboard chords. "Heuldoch 7B" adds profane lyrics to a sixties-style spy theme, its jazzy rhythm eventually swelling to rival the floor-show grandeur of "Grace of God", and "Kreibabe" offers an apocalyptic conclusion for those who can endure its epic length.
The downside here will be fairly obvious to anyone familiar with Thirlwell's previous output. While Flow's integration of big band jazz and other "external" musical styles is some of Thirlwell's most accomplished work to date -- creditable not only to better technology, but to the growth of his already respectable skills as a conventional composer -- its thematic elements remain the same. Sex, aggression, nihilism and slang terms for female anatomy abound, as they always have. A Foetus track is less a "song" than a manifesto, and the archetypal character behind the manifesto hasn't grown with Thirlwell; it remains exactly the same, album after album. If you own other Foetus records, you don't really need to own Flow...but you won't be disappointed, either. If you grew up thinking of Nine Inch Nails as the epitomy of hard stuff, get your ass to the record store pronto.
In this era of thug culture, Thirlwell's hard-ass character stands out; despite his gutter leanings, he's an old-fashioned guy, more honorable and respectable than the Slim Shadys and Fred Dursts of the world. He might not be a match for them when it comes to TRL screen time, but I'll confidently put fifty bucks on him in any barroom throw-down.
