CoC : Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Grand Opening and Closing : Review

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - _Grand Opening and Closing_
(Seeland/Chaosophy, 2002)
by: Brian Meloon (6 out of 10)

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are from San Francisco, and play what I'd describe as postmodern (i.e. "weird for the sake of weird") art rock. The music is not metal at all, though it does have some similarities to metal and is quite heavy at times. A good starting point for a comparison from the metal spectrum would be Thought Industry's _Songs for Insects_, though this album is a lot more dissonant and less accessible. That's not to say it isn't memorable, because there are sections which are quite catchy, but large sections of the album try hard to be difficult to listen to. There's a lot of slow and painfully dissonant stuff here, which gets to be tedious as the album drags on. In particular, the last three songs (the last 20 minutes of the album) seem to really drag on. The playing and production are fine, but aren't really the focal points for this album. Those into weird and heavy progrock should check this out, but while that sounds like something I should like, this album left me longing for something less annoying.

(article published 1/9/2002)