Andrew Jackson Jihad / Ghost Mice
Goblin's Split

LA RECENSIONE

The Ghost Mice here are the typical silly indie folk duo: male and female vocals, violin and guitar, songs about twee. Cute and nothing more.

The Andrew Jackson Jihad are the best band of the last decade and even this one, at least for now.

Let's still give credit to the Ghost Mice for hosting the Andrew Jackson Jihad at their home, the beautiful Plan-It-X Records, for this sixteen-track split that enjoys that relaxed atmosphere and lo-fi carelessness of a strictly DIY and practically no-profit label. An ideal setting for the Andrew Jackson Jihad, here stripped down to their basic lineup: Bonnette, Gallaty; acoustic guitar and vocals, double bass and vocals. Their sound here, more than ever, recalls the lo-fi masterpiece of the Mountain Goats. Let's give credit to the Ghost Mice also for the cover of Survival Song with Friday I'm in Love in the chorus, which always brings a smile.

Splits are almost never liked, almost always promotional operations or goofing around with friends, little depth and sometimes frankly just leftovers. Sean Bonnette, however, wouldn't be capable of writing poorly or carelessly even if he wanted to: seven fragments (plus one: the negligible cover of Lightning Bolt by the Ghost Mice) averaging two minutes; seven punches of negativity and bad feelings in the form of seven delirious parables with the usual dense finger-strumming tendon-tearing. Now catchy folk, now lament, now scream.

The lamentations: Little Prince is a sociopathic spin on the unfortunately classic by de Saint-Exupéry: flying away with a flock of birds from a world that frightens you while despising you. It contains one of their best choruses and a prayer to almighty Christ;

Forest Fire is a catalog of ugly images and for Kurt Cobain, who seemed to have his dark moments, in Lithium it was enough to break the mirrors to make everything okay; for Sean Bonnette, when you break the mirror, you only have sharp fragments that continue to reflect, multiplied, your unbearable image;

the opening lines of We All Go Die Alone Someday (quoting from memory, I swear): Bad things happen everyday/ cancer and murder and herpes and AIDS/ we'll all die alone someday/ I hope we don't die alone;

Let Us Get Murdered offers a valid alternative to the material tedium of suicide: getting murdered;

the diptych Nature is angry folk-gore and in Unicron, a machine for the bloody destruction of creation, the egocomprehensive misanthropy and the hatred for the entire nature - which I don't know what it's called - reaches peaks between declaring oneself a werewolf and wanting to become a giant ball of meat to be eaten to death by bees;

Power Plant is a straight edge praise to God and love, but I think it needs to be contextualized. Read above.

Plan-It-X Records' albums are cheap, their motto is if it ain't cheap, it ain't punk!: so please put it under the tree for family and friends, you'll make a great impression.