HR029 - Viktimized Karcass — Death's Deal — C90 — 1986
REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
On Death’s Deal, Pete McLean is gone and Mike Jackson is a full member, making for a mighty quartet of Chris Phinney, Richard Martin, Roger Moneymaker and Jackson. And hot DAMN, it sure does all really come together on this album!! This is where Viktimized Karcass finally go bat shit crazy in total space punk experimental land.
Side A opens with ‘Long Gone’, a punked out space ‘n’ roll jam with whizzing and whirring 50s sci-fi electronics and effects and a twisted garage surf edge. Chrome meets Alien Planetscapes for some Beach Blanket extraterrestrial Bingo fun and Louis and Bebe Barron garnishment on this cosmic cocktail. Love those whacked out electronics and cool guitar soloing with a Helios Creed meets Snakefinger in the punk club feel.
‘Sherriff Joe’ is next and features a twiddly toy sounding synth lead melody along with darkly rumbling and cavernous atmospherics, scary alien effects, and a potpourri of effects raining mayhem. It all grooves along slowly with spoken word soul-rap vocals telling Sheriff Joe’s tale. I get the feeling that Joe wasn’t a very nice guy because the vocals go on about all the this’s and that’s that he’s gonna kill down there in the deep South. The band are developing an amazing flair for being raw as a chewed bone yet big time layering on multiple whacked out components. It’s crazy yet exhilarating and takes the Hawkwind Space Ritual thing into punked out experimental realms. Absolutely nuts but freaking awesome. If Helios Creed were a Blues guitarist you might get something like Roger’s solos on this tune. GREAT deranged song!
The band-titled ‘Viktimized Karcass’ leads with a simple plunky keyboard melody and playfully screwy electronics. It’s all very sparse but goofily fun and melodic industrial Kraftwerk experimental mania. The vocals don’t crop up until later but when they do it sounds like Dr. John on meth, railing about the Viktimized Karcass that laid there.
‘I Can’t Breathe’ is a little different, being an avant atmospheric and, in its own demented way, dreamily hypnotic, adventure in sound, soundscapes and effects excursion. The combination of electronics parade and dreaminess is crazy. The “I CANT BREATHE!” vocals are disorienting, chaotic, and it all WORKS. Lots for attentive listeners to wrap their craniums around.
‘Half Life (excerpt)’ is a spaced out zany slab of twangy lysergic punk country brain on drugs little green men from Mars at a toga party living the cut-up folded-in dream in pure sonic head fucked glory hallelujah weirdness. Phewwww…. My brain is FRIED! On to Side B!!
‘Dead On Citizens Band’ is a playfully noisy effects exploratory New Wave Beefheart tune that rocks out and is actually one of the more intricately and impressively played and arranged yet still wildly experimental tunes I’ve heard yet from VK. Damn there is so much happening at once on this entire tape! It is one big roller flying saucer coaster ride into the vortex of a black hole!
‘Outside’ is an industrial noise-doom space rock song with a gothic edge and vocals that sing ominously about being afraid to go outside at night. Love that fuzzed out baritone bass and killer ripping guitar leads. ‘Time To Kill’ really took me by surprise. Imagine if Love It To Death era Alice Cooper were a home recorded space-doom band and you’d get something like this. That is exactly what this sounds like. ‘Night Creatures’ consists of grungy, sassy, acidic 70s anthem rock that comes crashing into the punk era with PIL Lydon on vocals and squealing alien mice effects. ‘Queers’ is another impressively intricate, albeit whacked out space punk experimental tune. These guys get so freaking good at just letting it all RIP and ROLL, rocking out and letting the sounds and effects FLY! There is NO way to adequately describe this brand of gloriously whacked out experimental space punk insanity! And, finally, ‘Heartbeat’ features more mind fucked experimental noisy acid drenched space doom. Downer drenched insanity for the soul.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): 2 Live Outings (HR026) was a live tape, and Madness & Mayhem (HR025) was the previous recorded set, which was still the quartet of you, Richard, Roger and Pete. As of this tape it’s you, Richard, Roger and Mike as full member of band. Do you think that changed things in any meaningful way?
Chris Phinney (CP): Now we had a bass player!
JK: Well that’s a meaningful change!
CP: We needed a bass player.
JK: I consider this by far the best Viktimized Karcass album up to this point. It’s a killer set of space rock, punk, experimental music. I love it. There’s some great songs. Like ‘Long Gone’, which I described as “a punked out space ‘n’ roll jam with whizzing and whirring 50s sci-fi electronics and effects and a twisted garage surf edge.”
CP: That’s a good description. With a bass player we could do totally different stuff. It changed the style of what we were doing, because we had a bass player that could accompany Roger’s guitar playing, as well as follow the keys and all that good stuff.
JK: What’s the Sheriff Joe story? I remember you mentioning him in an earlier interview.
CP: Sheriff Joe was running in some rural county in Tennessee. And I’d seen signs while driving up to Knoxville and Nashville. You could tell by the signs that he was one of those small town redneck sheriffs. Hated everybody.
JK: My description of the song in the review is longer than what I wrote for any of the others. I just kept going on and on in my description, making Hawkwind and Helios Creed references. I said “If Helios Creed were a Blues guitarist you might get something like Roger’s solos on this tune.”
CP: Roger did some really good solos on that tune. And on the whole album. I think I’d just acquired the ARP Axxe synth as well. I got it at a pawn shop for like a hundred bucks.
JK: The cover of this tape, the sign isn’t Sheriff Joe. It says ‘Elect V.C. Amason Sheriff’. The sign is somebody different.
CP: Yeah, it’s somebody different. I changed the name. I saw the sign on the road, I knew it was some small town sheriff and I changed it to Sheriff Joe. It worked better lyrically than V.C. Amason.
JK: Another tune that was kind of different that I like is ‘I Can’t Breathe’. It’s really atmospheric and hypnotic, and you’ve got all this sound exploration and soundscapes and effects. But then all of a sudden the vocals go, “I CANT BREATHE!”
CP: Richard did a good job on the vocals on that song.
JK: ‘Half Life’ has (excerpt) in the title. Was there a longer version somewhere?
CP: I think maybe we just ran out of tape. So we just faded it out and called it an excerpt. I don’t think there’s a longer version.
JK: What’s up with the band-titled ‘Viktimized Karcass’ track… is it a band theme song?
CP: It was just a nod to Viktimized Karcass. It’s about being a victimized carcass if you caught the lyrics.
JK: Right, the vocals don’t crop up until later but when they do, I’ll read my description: “They sound like Dr John on meth, railing about the Viktimized Karcass that laid there.”
CP: Yeah (laughs). We were just having fun. We were jamming. As you could tell we were getting into a lot of improv on that tape. Like ‘Time To Kill’… it changes a lot vs. the earlier version we recorded.
JK: I had made a Captain Beefheart analogy with you guys before. The song ‘Dead On Citizens Band’ I described as “a playfully noisy effects exploratory New Wave Beefheart tune”.
CP: That’s another reference to the CB radio. It’s like you’re dead on the citizens band man, you’re dead (laughs).
On Death’s Deal, Pete McLean is gone and Mike Jackson is a full member, making for a mighty quartet of Chris Phinney, Richard Martin, Roger Moneymaker and Jackson. And hot DAMN, it sure does all really come together on this album!! This is where Viktimized Karcass finally go bat shit crazy in total space punk experimental land.
Side A opens with ‘Long Gone’, a punked out space ‘n’ roll jam with whizzing and whirring 50s sci-fi electronics and effects and a twisted garage surf edge. Chrome meets Alien Planetscapes for some Beach Blanket extraterrestrial Bingo fun and Louis and Bebe Barron garnishment on this cosmic cocktail. Love those whacked out electronics and cool guitar soloing with a Helios Creed meets Snakefinger in the punk club feel.
‘Sherriff Joe’ is next and features a twiddly toy sounding synth lead melody along with darkly rumbling and cavernous atmospherics, scary alien effects, and a potpourri of effects raining mayhem. It all grooves along slowly with spoken word soul-rap vocals telling Sheriff Joe’s tale. I get the feeling that Joe wasn’t a very nice guy because the vocals go on about all the this’s and that’s that he’s gonna kill down there in the deep South. The band are developing an amazing flair for being raw as a chewed bone yet big time layering on multiple whacked out components. It’s crazy yet exhilarating and takes the Hawkwind Space Ritual thing into punked out experimental realms. Absolutely nuts but freaking awesome. If Helios Creed were a Blues guitarist you might get something like Roger’s solos on this tune. GREAT deranged song!
The band-titled ‘Viktimized Karcass’ leads with a simple plunky keyboard melody and playfully screwy electronics. It’s all very sparse but goofily fun and melodic industrial Kraftwerk experimental mania. The vocals don’t crop up until later but when they do it sounds like Dr. John on meth, railing about the Viktimized Karcass that laid there.
‘I Can’t Breathe’ is a little different, being an avant atmospheric and, in its own demented way, dreamily hypnotic, adventure in sound, soundscapes and effects excursion. The combination of electronics parade and dreaminess is crazy. The “I CANT BREATHE!” vocals are disorienting, chaotic, and it all WORKS. Lots for attentive listeners to wrap their craniums around.
‘Half Life (excerpt)’ is a spaced out zany slab of twangy lysergic punk country brain on drugs little green men from Mars at a toga party living the cut-up folded-in dream in pure sonic head fucked glory hallelujah weirdness. Phewwww…. My brain is FRIED! On to Side B!!
‘Dead On Citizens Band’ is a playfully noisy effects exploratory New Wave Beefheart tune that rocks out and is actually one of the more intricately and impressively played and arranged yet still wildly experimental tunes I’ve heard yet from VK. Damn there is so much happening at once on this entire tape! It is one big roller flying saucer coaster ride into the vortex of a black hole!
‘Outside’ is an industrial noise-doom space rock song with a gothic edge and vocals that sing ominously about being afraid to go outside at night. Love that fuzzed out baritone bass and killer ripping guitar leads. ‘Time To Kill’ really took me by surprise. Imagine if Love It To Death era Alice Cooper were a home recorded space-doom band and you’d get something like this. That is exactly what this sounds like. ‘Night Creatures’ consists of grungy, sassy, acidic 70s anthem rock that comes crashing into the punk era with PIL Lydon on vocals and squealing alien mice effects. ‘Queers’ is another impressively intricate, albeit whacked out space punk experimental tune. These guys get so freaking good at just letting it all RIP and ROLL, rocking out and letting the sounds and effects FLY! There is NO way to adequately describe this brand of gloriously whacked out experimental space punk insanity! And, finally, ‘Heartbeat’ features more mind fucked experimental noisy acid drenched space doom. Downer drenched insanity for the soul.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): 2 Live Outings (HR026) was a live tape, and Madness & Mayhem (HR025) was the previous recorded set, which was still the quartet of you, Richard, Roger and Pete. As of this tape it’s you, Richard, Roger and Mike as full member of band. Do you think that changed things in any meaningful way?
Chris Phinney (CP): Now we had a bass player!
JK: Well that’s a meaningful change!
CP: We needed a bass player.
JK: I consider this by far the best Viktimized Karcass album up to this point. It’s a killer set of space rock, punk, experimental music. I love it. There’s some great songs. Like ‘Long Gone’, which I described as “a punked out space ‘n’ roll jam with whizzing and whirring 50s sci-fi electronics and effects and a twisted garage surf edge.”
CP: That’s a good description. With a bass player we could do totally different stuff. It changed the style of what we were doing, because we had a bass player that could accompany Roger’s guitar playing, as well as follow the keys and all that good stuff.
JK: What’s the Sheriff Joe story? I remember you mentioning him in an earlier interview.
CP: Sheriff Joe was running in some rural county in Tennessee. And I’d seen signs while driving up to Knoxville and Nashville. You could tell by the signs that he was one of those small town redneck sheriffs. Hated everybody.
JK: My description of the song in the review is longer than what I wrote for any of the others. I just kept going on and on in my description, making Hawkwind and Helios Creed references. I said “If Helios Creed were a Blues guitarist you might get something like Roger’s solos on this tune.”
CP: Roger did some really good solos on that tune. And on the whole album. I think I’d just acquired the ARP Axxe synth as well. I got it at a pawn shop for like a hundred bucks.
JK: The cover of this tape, the sign isn’t Sheriff Joe. It says ‘Elect V.C. Amason Sheriff’. The sign is somebody different.
CP: Yeah, it’s somebody different. I changed the name. I saw the sign on the road, I knew it was some small town sheriff and I changed it to Sheriff Joe. It worked better lyrically than V.C. Amason.
JK: Another tune that was kind of different that I like is ‘I Can’t Breathe’. It’s really atmospheric and hypnotic, and you’ve got all this sound exploration and soundscapes and effects. But then all of a sudden the vocals go, “I CANT BREATHE!”
CP: Richard did a good job on the vocals on that song.
JK: ‘Half Life’ has (excerpt) in the title. Was there a longer version somewhere?
CP: I think maybe we just ran out of tape. So we just faded it out and called it an excerpt. I don’t think there’s a longer version.
JK: What’s up with the band-titled ‘Viktimized Karcass’ track… is it a band theme song?
CP: It was just a nod to Viktimized Karcass. It’s about being a victimized carcass if you caught the lyrics.
JK: Right, the vocals don’t crop up until later but when they do, I’ll read my description: “They sound like Dr John on meth, railing about the Viktimized Karcass that laid there.”
CP: Yeah (laughs). We were just having fun. We were jamming. As you could tell we were getting into a lot of improv on that tape. Like ‘Time To Kill’… it changes a lot vs. the earlier version we recorded.
JK: I had made a Captain Beefheart analogy with you guys before. The song ‘Dead On Citizens Band’ I described as “a playfully noisy effects exploratory New Wave Beefheart tune”.
CP: That’s another reference to the CB radio. It’s like you’re dead on the citizens band man, you’re dead (laughs).