Alien Sex Fiend, Who's Been Sleeping In My Brain?

How Thee Fiend's music ever got tagged as gloomy or depressing I'll never understand. Mayhaps "deranged" and "depressed" have simply become synonymous in an age of Prozac-popping housewives and rap-metal bands whose entire shtick seems to revolve around whinging about how their parents' divorce turned them into misogynist jocks who are "on the edge" or "about to break". For those who know that a trip to the heart of your own psychoses is just about the most fun you can have without a gang of cantankerous racoons (hell, bring them along too!), there's Alien Sex Fiend.

Ah, Alien Sex Fiend. They came into the life of a sixteen year-old kid at just the right time. Having just been clued into the fact that there were entire universes that you just couldn't tune into on 90's rock radio a scant two years previous, our hero was despondant. "Wait a bat-fuckin' minute! This music's cool n' all, but all of these people are miserable! They're either cardigan-wearin', college radio DJin', Sonic Youth worshippin' snobby scenester motherfuckers, fashion-obsessed, airheaded humourless goths or self-righteous punkers beating each other's heads in with their manifestos and who sold-out-in bullshit! Doesn't anyone here know how to have some serious fuckin' FUN?"

Salvation came in the form of a music video found on a cheesy goth compilation (man, those three words are rarely far from each other). Amidst frighteningly lame Sisters Of Mercy ripoffs and other tripe were six minutes and forty-one seconds of supremely chaotic, deliciously insane musical riot. "Ignore The Machine". Hijinx in graveyards, giant inflatable bananas, drumming on skulls, lotsa fire, and that mad, mad Nik Fiend poking his head in at odd angles, showing us that dancing to the beat of a living dead truly was the way to go. Our young man saw his own weekend proclivities (Slurpees in graveyards, all-nite zombie movies, the whole gang huddling up in blankets as the sun came up) reflected, and heard a sound that was an anthem to youth, riot, colour, and the need to keep laughing as the whole fucking thing burns down.

Anyway, the record. The trademark throbby, squiggly keyboard pulse is in full effect ("Lips Can't Go"), and the production gives Nik's voice the freedom to yowl and caper all over the churning drum and guitar. The record sleeve boasts "...No Bass Guitars!!", and I'd like to think that having the lead guitar carry much of the rhythmic as well as melodic duties on their songs (clearing room for more auditory fucked-upedness) is one of the cleverer tricks in Thee Fiend's bag o' musical heresy, but then again the record sleeve also proclaims "Long Live The Bacon Empire", so what the fuck do I know?

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