1997년에 결성된 시애틀 출신 5인조 이모코어 밴드 블러드 브라더스는 2002년 데뷔앨범The Adultery is Ripe으로 프레스의 극찬과 함께 컬트적인 스타덤에 오른, 동시대 펑크 리바이벌의 전위에 서 있다. 이들의 2003년 신보 Burn Island Piano, Burn은 그들을 특징짓는 초현실주의적 가사와 분노에 가득찬 강력한 보컬, 맹렬한 기타 리프, 질주하는 드러밍, 키보드의 드론 사운드가 밀도있게 결합된 최근 몇 년간 나온 최고의 코어 앨범 중 하나로 인정받고 있다. '당신이 이모코어 팬이라면 당신이 원하는 모든 게 여기 있다' .... ....
Do you remember us? Do you remember us? We wrapped your corvette in cellophane, set it aflame! Do you remember us? Do you remember us? We doused your TV set in propane, turned up the gain! This party's dying so guitar-me! Raise the glass to the guitarmy! Do you remember us? Do you remember us?
Verse 1: Ring out the gong again! Carve out this hymn in skin! When the party blacks out again you're still eating headlines out of the newspaper bin. Slap the gong again! Carve out this hymn in skin!
Chorus: Happy birthday gelatins smearing bruises on your chin. There's cake but no mouth, conch but no sound, glossy skeletons boyfriends but no friends.
Verse 2: Ring out the gong again! Carve out this hymn in skin! When they've pissed between every sheet of your father's bed those tears have barcodes waiting to be scanned/scammed. And when they've hurled every gutted couch cushion from the living room into your fathers swimming pool, you're bobbing chlorine apples in the broth bucket of envy's gruel.
Chorus: Happy birthday gelatins smearing bruises on your chin. There's cake but no mouth, conch but no sound, glossy skeletons boyfriends but no friends.
Coda: Ring! Ring! Ring out the gong! Son now you've made it to the top of their list. Congratulations your fucking's greatest hit!
Afterward: Behind husks of leather, photo albums sheild their laughter. You thought they'd make you breakfast the morning after? Your fantasy season gangrened off the calander.
This room is a, a fluorescent tomb: it's brazen bulbs mimic death's heina croon. He pulls on her wires, she jerks to attention, she's animated again, she's talking to a hypodermic reflection. We've watched it all from the window ledge, the nurses offer their condolences, tongues flapping I can't make out your tone, Our hearts beat in slow motion.
If we make it to the final scene (fake flowers!) Show me to the sapphire pit (fake tomb) Peel the candy crust of my body (fake flowers) Throw in the brittle skeleton (fake tomb)
Can you inject love's tender touch back into the gang bang? Can you knit the stiletto back into the bloodstain? Can you put the bite back into the beast you've broke, and tied and tamed? Can you crease the wrinkles back into the cracked and open brain?
So doctor won't you pull the fucking plug? Won't you cut the cord? 'Cause you can't put the life back into this hospital ward.
Say won't you pull the plug! Say won't you cut the cord! x4
Now she's gonna make it out ok, but she's shaking like a revolution! And she stares at the fire all day, mumbling to herself: Every hole has a snake in it, And every crotch is a siamese gun. Every sunshine hides a cancerous chime And every breath is a bomb.
I'd like to wrap my arms around you like a flesh canopy I'd like to take your head, place it somewhere between my shoulders and neck but, I'm afraid your brittle bones would break We can hear the black out orchestra singing... Can you hear them singing? Can you hear them? Can you?
Can you inject love's tender touch back into the gang bang? Can you knit the stiletto back into the bloodstain? Can you put the bite back into the beast you've broke, and tied and tamed? Can you crease the wrinkles back into the cracked and open brain?
So doctor won't you pull the fucking plug? Won't you cut the cord? 'Cause you can't put the life back into this hospital ward.
So doctor won't you pull the fucking plug? Won't you cut the cord? 'Cause you can't put the life back into this hospital ward.
Fingers: 1-900-USA-NAILS Prisoner: "operator I love you. Operator, I would never leave you... Operator I love to see your face pressed up against the glass. I need to hear the way your tongue tastes in my ear..."
Operator: "Put the receiver to your chest and let me know who loves you best."
Prisoner: "The county sheriff said that my baby is dead. They found him in some trash can, blue all clenched and chewed. Don't judge me, I'm not his real mother, I couldn't even recognize his face, his tears of wax, his skin like a subway running over spinal tracks. Operator can I confide you? They haven't got an ounce of proof! Those pigs locked me up to see what color i'd rot into! (It wasn't me it was my false tiger limbs.. It wasn't me it was the garbage gryphon!) When i walk i wald alone (operator come on!), when I watch you through the phone (operator come on) and depupil these lonely eyes, the love scenes grafted to the sky are making me cry... 1-900-USA-NAILS (oh baby) I get one phone call a day from Molson County jail...
Operator: 1-900-USA-NAILS. 98 cents per minute cash or credit, check or debit...
(noticeable pause)
Prisoner: Operator-rator wont you tell me again! Operator-rator yeah you're my only friend!
Operator: "Do you remember that night in the back of daddy's car... strumming the chords of your pubic guitar... the way you tasted like a movie star... the way the windsheild reflected the sunrise, the way the light tattooed your thighs... You're the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world... your time is up, till next time! We'll send you a bill."
Prisoner: Listen.... can you hear the buildings crumbling in slow motion? Blow me up like a baloon we'll float over the ocean! Listen...can you hear them taking me away, don't tell the fucking guards what i've said. Can you see the angels stringing wires through my face?
Operator: Meet me next week, same time, same place.
Murder=White Out. Cancer=Birth Blouse. Mirror=Perfect Glass Spouse. Oil=Sex Paint. Shower=Water Saint. Death Decodes the howls from our hands. Skull=Noise Nest. TV=Fuck Test. Mirror=Siamese Gun Kiss. Sugar=Birth Bait. Murder=Loves Fate.
Death distills the camouflage from our dance. Death inverts the red from romance. Death x-rays the angels of chance. Death; the anti-mirror of infants. Like a picture hiding beneath the digital avalanche.
When Cecilia's grave cracked like a dirt cocoon, she pulled up a stool at the silhouette saloon. The player piano mumbling crippled jigs. Black widows knitting victimless wigs. When Cecilia's throat slit like a second set of lips, she drooled braille bibles onto the brothel bed spread. Like an egg whose yoke defies child bearing hips. Like a ghost who fears all the deceased and dead.
(Time eats the flesh and spits out the shadow like a useless wishbone.)
But that locket spinning around her neck, whose hearth heats a dead valentine, you know the phantom trail leads way to a muted grave.
Where is his voice now? A dead tone in the flutter of drunken wings. Where is his blushed cheek now? A face unraveled in shadow, veiled in blind laughter. Where are those sex ripened lips? His kiss print still warm on several necks.
When the french maids cigarette turns burns like a boiling tapeworm (that was really something baby, that was really something baby) When the chandeleers shatter, your guest's gowns turn to tatters, the portraits just chatter (that was really something baby, that was really something baby) Can you feel your sweat beading porcelin? Your skeleton outgrowing it's skin? It's the pinball masquerade.... (that was really something baby) Oh Oh Oh I saw the curtains of hair, Oh Oh Oh I saw my fingers tear. They said "we are the six nightmares (oh yeah) we are the six nightmares (oh yeah). we are the six nightmares (oh yeah). Oh Oh Oh I saw the face of a girl oh oh oh strapped to a poison pear oh oh oh she said: "we are the six nightmares (oh yeah) we are the six nightmares (oh yeah) we are the six nightmares (oh yeah)" I saw a millionaire eat his shadow, I saw a water clock beat a widow they said if one man's life is the sum of something I want to see your fears materializing!" Where are the six nightmares where are the six nightmares where are the six nightmares where are the six nightmares at this costume bash? Open your throat look in the raw gash!
You held each other by well groomed hands, mumbling prayers to a neglected jesus. The matradees quiver as they watch you shiver as the mask and the mouth knit into each other. Our laughter was deafining but our lips but our lips but our lips were trembling. Our laughter was deafining but our lips but our lips but our lips were trembling Now the lady with the peacock mask, is writhing around in broken monicle glass, imprisoned like a beetle laying on it's back, and the man striped up and clawed calico like a cat, is trapped forever looking like that. "all your luxury, all your well hidden trash, all your empty wine bottles disguised as class, all the bastard children you pay off, all the money it takes for you to get off. "May i have this dance?" the dark dealer takes your hands... All your memories all your forgotten plans/one night stands; they are the six nightmares at the masquerade, they are the six nightmares at the masquerade, they are the six nightmares at the masquerade. we are the six nightmares at the masquerade we are the six nightmares at the masquerade Oh Oh Oh I saw the mirrors cringe Oh Oh Oh the choir voices bend Oh Oh Oh the costume in my skin...they said "we are the six nightmares (oh yeah!) we are the six nightmares (oh yeah) we are the six nightmares. WE ARE THE SIX NIGHTMARES!" We are the six nightmares at the masquerade. We are the six nightmares!
Why can't we let our mouths devour each other? Why can't we turn those miles into inches, letters into breath, years into seconds? (We always said we'd return to the candy coated jungle.) we always said that we would return to see what kind of orchird our heart seeds grew. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go. So pick up the fucking phone. I sent you a letter just the other day my friend, It said "tonight my body is crucified across the carcus that our love grew. Tonight black feathers float from the sky like it's raining lies. Tonight my lungs are hanging from a telephone wire, choking on the broken digits of a dial tone. (Tonight telephone booths and trucks gawk as my ribcage snaps and snarls like a venus fly trap.) Where did our hearts go? Where did our hearts go? Where did the crows go? Our mouths are limp mouths. We said we'd return for our petrified hearts put our name to the parchment made a pact in the dark. Guaze gagged beaks may pump and beat but sealed inside are secrets screaming to speak, (So open up your chest and let the birds free. So meet me under the deserted desert tree. We'll eat sand crumpets and drink cactus tea, well pretend this dirt is sea.) We ate the white from the wedding, ate the sheets from the bedding, ate the smiles off our children, ate the leather off our birth skin. Have we wasted our whole lives sucking candy coated bullets from the chemical gun? Every car that passes on this crooked highway bears your face on it's grill. Every headlight casts your shadow onto my open hear vigil. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go. They go into fucking skeletons.
Bullhorn: "Save the falsetto valentines for the black ice cube toast, for the filth roast."
Classified: You know she looks so clinique, but when you think she's asleep, we're watching from inside the pilots seat. Because unfortunately this Marylin Monroe is a secret Zeppelin whose sweat rains down napalm confetti on all black tie celebrations.
Bullhorn: Tear out your carnivorous toupee for the afro fire, save your hors'dovours for the boiling lobster choir.
Classified: You know she looks so vulnerable in that snakeskin shawl, but we're watching through her cut out eye holes (because unfortunately this Marylin Monroe is a Secret Zepplin known towing a sign across the Coca-cola sky that reads S.S. Penetration)
God Bless you Bloodthirsty Zeppelins!
Technique: And now we're flying over the past and future butchered from out brains and left to rot. And now we're flying over the television towers plastering the air with the filthy film of prayer. We don't need a blueprint, we don't need a blue print the blue prints me, the blue prints you.
Classified: We'll build our engines from hijacked hymans. Propellers churning in whispered fury. We'll pluck our bombs from the greased pouch of your presidents propighanda pupa louse.
Message received: "Honey I'll be home late, from the office today, up to my neck in paperwork, yeah, my boss is such a jerk."
Telephone wire: "Yeah she bought the story...there's a motel up the street... so show me your surrender face baby"
Bullhorn: Unfortunately this Marylin Monroe is a secret Zeppelin set on a crash coarse with your cumshot museum with the blowjob bunny mansion.
Technique: And now we're flying over factories manufacturing authentic ecstacy. And now we're flying over the swamp that brews the biggest smiles, cackling teeth in piles. And now we're flying over the globe derobed all the houses x-rayed all our thoughts exposed. And all the copyrighted memories in my head spill to the floor in a puddle of hungry lead. And while the traffic weaves human tapestry's we sing a chord to the frustriation symphony. Unfortunately this marylin monroe is a secret zepplin...
Blood Brothers의 전작, [March on Electric Children]의 마지막 트랙 <American Vultures>로 이야기를 시작해 볼까요. 자기들이 하드코어계의 Ben Folds라도 된다는 듯이 피아노를 전면에 내세우고 여전히 거친 목소리지만 나쁘지 않은 '노래'를 토해내던 곡입니다. 사람들은 이게 농담이라고 생각했지만, 신보를 보건데 본인들에겐 그렇지 않았던 모양입니다. 하긴 애당초 이 친구들에게 어떤 식으로든 농담이란 어울리지 않는 것이죠. 하지만 이들을 좋아했던 사람이라면 메이저 배급망을 사용하는 Artist Direct와의 계약하고 프로듀서 Ross Robinson이 참여한다는 소식이 겹쳐지면서 그들의 '노래'를 재앙의 폭풍전야처럼 느꼈을지도 모르겠습니다. 하지만...