Fu Manchu
Clone Of The Universe

LA RECENSIONE

DRUGS ARE BAD

If you take a look at the photos of Fu Manchu circulating during the ''In Search of/The Action is go'' era, when every riff of theirs made you want to go home and burn half of your records, Scott Hill is dressed exactly the same way. Randomly colored t-shirt with horizontal stripes, black jeans picked up from a market that barely reach the anterior tibial area, black Vans over white socks, long blonde hair perpetually in his eyes, and a scruffy teenage beard poking out from under his chin. If he didn't have that transparent plastic Bontempi-style guitar, he could apply for a job as a pastor in an Amish community just outside Des Moines.

Talking about a new Fu album in 2018 is like being a mattress salesman and knocking on Mastrota's door: no one will give you a second glance, but you'll discover, sardonically, an uncontrollable desire for hand-embroidered double bedspreads. ''Clone Of The Universe'' is a shrewd tribute to everything the Californians have been and, in all likelihood, still are: desert, THC, punk attitude, some heavy riffs, a lot of skill, loads of fuzz, and Scott's unmistakable voice filled with skateboarding and interstellar pilgrimages.

And so? You may ask...

...so what the hell!!

Because, just when you're thinking of getting up in a stoned trance to raid whatever edible appears within a 5m radius, here comes ''Il Mostro Atomico''. And the drugged, hallucinogenic, and wasted stoner wins again https://youtu.be/hP0bR7vpRVM

Guitars, guitars, more guitars, a battered bass, maybe four words at best, Merinos wool quilts, and then more guitars, inextricable pedals, and a bit more guitars, one of which is the titanic one of Alex Lifeson, who, for this occasion, left Geddy and Neil at the hockey game in Toronto with the excuse of going out to buy maple syrup liquid for his stainless steel 18/10 e-cig (with a fused base one centimeter high). A truly monumental 18-minute suite dedicated to distorted perception, a continuous flow of scents, thoughts, and illogicalities elevating a thus far ordinary and respectable album, projecting it towards a completely different realm. An almost supersensible level. Perhaps unreachable. Definitely nonstick.

#incomoderatetassozero