Blood Brothers

The Intima Mon Mar 3

Blackbird

The Blood Brothers sandwiched between Milemarker and the Intima? How's THAT for irony? I mean, don't get me wrong, I've been down with the Bros' buckwild wraith skronk since they were in diapers, but it's like putting, say, Rimbaud on a book tour with Noam Chomsky and Abbie Hoffman.

See, as much as I dig the Blood Brothers, they're more a throwback to Libertine debauchery or Roman death-orgies (set Caligula with sloppier blowjobs to a funked-up Cannibal Corpse for reference), while Milemarker and the Intima throw down a thick, bloody slab of U.S.D.A. Choice 2003.

The Blood Brothers' Burn Piano Island, Burn features them at the height of their pulpy, gore-to-the-floor surrealist game. Lyrics read like suicide notes or the late-night rantings of some county coroner, pre-nervous-breakdown. The music is swirling and over-the-top--half drawn-out Locust, half fonkified metal savagery. It's nothing you can really relate to, because who really lives a life that drenched in death and poetry? Still, in itself, it's good escapist art.

Milemarker and the Intima, on the other hand, are real-deal pragmatists, though their sounds couldn't be more different--Milemarker as icy synthdeath and the Intima as Irish Unwound. Still, their messages are about looking into the future with resolve and tryin' to make shit better with solutions, debate, and action.

Conversely, the Blood Brothers' message is more along the lines of, "drink Comet and jack off to trash TV while Toulouse-Lautrec spazz-dances in the kitchen with black butterflies struggling to flap out of his empty eye sockets." Which, granted, is completely abstract and grotesque and makes no sense whatsoever, but is a fun ride nonetheless.

So, three great bands. Two WAY different agendas.

What does it all mean? Is it a sign of the times or just a case of bad booking? Alright, I'm probably reading into their motives a little more than need be. I mean, these cats aren't SO different that it would be like paring, say, Dr. Dre with Burt Bacharach, but I can't help but feel a deep psychic rift between them.

In 2003, folks are either looking for messages and guidance, or searching for a way to dance and drink and screw their troubles into oblivion. Truth, meaning, and lies come in landmine flashes, bold mortar bursts, with most everybody hiding behind special interests and shady contradictory action. People are polarized. We're either fightin' the Fear or looking for escapism. But when all is said and done, maybe this show will reflect just that.