Dead Milkmen: The King in Yellow

Dead Milkmen: The King in Yellow

2011

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. The King in Yellow / William Bloat  2. Fauxhemia  3. She's Affected  4. Caitlin Childs  5. Meaningless Upbeat Happy Song  6. Hangman  7. Cold Hard Ground  8. Some Young Guy  9. Or Maybe It Is  10. Passport to Depravity  11. Quality of Death  12. Buried In The Sky  13. 13th Century Boy  14. Commodify Your Dissent  15. Can't Relax  16. Melora Says  17. Solvents (For Home and Industry)




Sorry I haven't been doing the blog as much lately, I'm in the process of doing rough mixes for a TA-80 album, which has been eating up most of my free time this week...But I set aside a couple hours today, so let's finish up this Dead Milkmen section!

Y'know, for some reason I feel like writing a super inaccurate review today...

Warning: Reading the irresistible truths in Act Two of this blog will drive you mad...Reading this first act is relatively safe though...So here we go...The Earth-2 review of "The King in Yellow" by the Dead Milkmen...

Act One:

 The Dead Milkmen's latest effort combines the street-wise, small-hat, pitter-pat of prime Jason Mraz with the complex musical map-making and puffy-shirted bombast of "In the Pathways of Pythagoras"-era Dream Theater...

The album begins with a tension-building 45 minutes of the band tuning their instruments, then suddenly the "water" suite begins with the feverish whirlwind of violins that introduces "The King in Yellow / William Bloat."  Their decision to work with Leopold Schpuss and the the Philadelphia Philharmonic really pays off in this piece, adding subtle (and often playful) shades of nuance you don't normally associate with the band's later "blue" period...

The duet "Fauxhemia," matches Rodney Anonymous (he of the 12-octave vocal range) with the smoked wine chanteuse Norah Jones; her venti voice wrapping itself seductively around every syllable, twisting the lyrics like saltwater taffy...

"I just don't get ME ME ME!
Maybe this is why I feel so alone..."

I think Starbucks better order extra copies of this album cos this thing's gonna fly off the shelves like a marbled panini!

On an album loaded with surprises, the biggest shock occurs on " Caitlin Childs" where the band teams up with the titular television chef, who recites her mouth-watering recipe for honey baked ham over lush accompaniment...

Who says gastronomy and gut-bucket rock n' roll don't mix?!

However, I do find the closing "sky" suite, consisting of ("Melora Says" and  "Solvents (For Home and Industry)" to be a little dull. The band experiments with micro-harmonies,  cluster notes, and sub-atomic frequencies...While academically interesting, this piece goes on for a little too long for this particular listener (453 minutes?!?! No wonder they had to make this one a 25-disc set!!). 

Act 2:

SPOILER ALERT!!! WHY, OH WHY DID YOU READ THAT FIRST WORD?!?! Now you have no choice but to read the rest of this act which contains truths so mind-bending that you'll spend the remainder of your miserable existence running through the streets, raving like a wild lunatic!

O, farewell, mind!

Sweet madness beckons...

Lo, the horrible truths:

1 In 4 Americans Thinks The Sun Goes Around The Earth, Survey Says...

 There are trillions of tiny insects living all over your body and no matter what you do you can never get them off of you! THIS MAKES ME ITCH, DAMMIT!!! ITCH!!!

Act 3:

Alright, now that we're all insane, here's what I really think about "The King in Yellow"...

I was super surprised to see this in the "new releases" section at Zia Records back in 2011...The band had been away for so long and with the tragic passing of Dave Blood, I just figured we'd heard the last of the Dead Milkmen...But there it was...Usually when I check out reunion albums I tend to automatically lower my expectations a bit, but this is one of those rare exceptions where the band didn't miss a step rejoining the workforce of active bands...

Sure, it's darker and angrier than their previous albums (although not dissimilar to the bummed-out second half of "Stoney's,"),  which makes sense because the world's become a darker, angrier place since they left...And their sense of outrage is well placed... A few of the targets include empty-headed patriotic country music, vampire-boyfriend novels, government surveillance, stuffy NPR blandness (Norah Jones, Wes Anderson), reality shows...But it still manages to be funny as hell, although I'd classify it as "gallows" humor ("Hangman" is literally gallows humor, in fact...).

"Country music used to be about music and not about the county
There once was a time when rap was dangerous
Now flag-waving idiots and millionaire illiterates dance across the screen
Johnny Cash died for you..."

- "Commodify Your Dissent"

"I've seen young people waste their time
Reading books about sensitive Vampires
It's kinda sad
But you say it's not the end of the world
Or maybe it is..."

-"Maybe It Is"

"If you didn't check the box next to “I am often sad”,
 there's something seriously wrong with you.
Cuz it's a big world,
and it's filled to the rafters with Cretans and morons.
Have you ever seen one of those child beauty pageants?
Sure, it's an easy target, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be a target..."


- "Meaningless Upbeat Happy Song"

I can imagine that some of the fans who were turned off by the whimsical humor and spoken-word leanings of post "Soul Rotation" DM will be thrilled with the faster, sharper melodies here...And the song "Passport to Depravity" is just flat-out one of their best songs...They turn the unlikely subject of Roman Emperor Tiberius into ridiculously catchy pop-punk...If anything, buy this album for this song...

It's so great to have these guys back, and it's made even sweeter by how good the new material is...Since this album they've released a string of singles that I haven't been able to get ahold of...Hopefully they issue those as a single-album or something...

Anyway, here's a video someone made for the Dead Milkmen song "Can't Relax" that uses scenes from Evangelion...Huh? Enjoy...