The Strange Walls- Home Is Where You Hang Yourself

ARTIST: The Strange Walls

ALBUM: Home Is Where You Hang Yourself

LABEL: Self-released

REVIEWER: Matthew J.

DATE: 2-3-09

Helmed by Jon Vomit Worthley, New York City band The Strange Walls combine the acoustic eccentricities of early death rock with the avant-garde analog electronics of the first industrial bands. Their full-length demo opens with "Bully in the Alley," a shout-along acoustic piece that sounds something like a cross between on of the Virgin Prunes' folk offerings and The Violent Femmes, with "One Eye Two Eye Three Eye" adding subsequent synthesizers and rambling bursts of guitar noise as accompaniment to the nasal twang of Worthley's vocals. The rest of the album alternates between spooky folk numbers like the rollicking gypsy-inspired "Skin and Bones" and primitive but effective electronic compositions like "Black Mould" and "Shitburg Song," both of which are comparable to the earliest work of the Legendary Pink Dots, right down to the psychedelic circus organ accompanied by screeching violin. While at times the band's forays into self-aware surrealism borders on art school pretentiousness, as on "The Robber Bridegroom," this is by and large exquisitely weird stuff. "Everybody Disappears" is especially brilliant, its deliberately twee music box effects and synthpop beat only adding to the creepiness. While Worthley, guitarist Danya Yushkov, and percussionist Dandrogynous are amateur at times, this release's low-fi qualities only add to its charms, and fans of similar avant-garde death rock acts like The Deadfly Ensemble should especially enjoy The Strange Walls.

Visit Worthley and friends online at www.strangewalls.spyw.com/.