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Black Black Ocean

Ever wonder what would have happened if Fugazi had retroactively developed fetal alcohol syndrome and became addicted to wearing rattlesnake codpieces and huffing gold-glitter spray paint out of plastic Safeway bags on the corner of Park Avenue and California? Well, wonder no more. Eaglemaniac, the second full-length release by Black...
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Ever wonder what would have happened if Fugazi had retroactively developed fetal alcohol syndrome and became addicted to wearing rattlesnake codpieces and huffing gold-glitter spray paint out of plastic Safeway bags on the corner of Park Avenue and California? Well, wonder no more. Eaglemaniac, the second full-length release by Black Black Ocean (which performs Friday, July 9, at Rock Island), is a simulation of just such a scenario. Like taking a shit while having the hiccups, the disc sends you into spasms on both ends at once: The instruments, in sympathy with victims of molestation, sound pissed at the bandmembers for sticking their fingers in all the wrong places, while singer Ryan Eason could easily pass for a monkey with a microchip installed in his brain. His throat-corroding lyrics come on like nursery rhymes, most noticeably on the song "Flight of the Fearless Condor Rider," a gibbering wad of surrealism that brags, "Taking pies from the piper's lips/See the fiddler shake his hips/Hear the ring from the rin tin tin/Win, win, win!" The one track on the album that bears anything resembling literalism, "I Love You Like Cocaine," involves Eason tweaking some faux electro and extolling the virtues of blow over beer: "They were the ones that were acting up/Hopped on some fumes from a paper cup/We were the ones with the perfect aim/Numb in the teeth with electric brains." But the crown jewel of the Ocean's princely new opus is "You Perfect Ass." A quivering slab of nerd-on-nerd sex, it crams an entire lifetime of lust, euphoria and Dungeons and Dragons-inspired daydreaming into the lines, "Sleeping in your dirt/Ice cubes in your gut/Sexy like a dragon on speed/And that's your cue to go." It's also the band's cue to dump a load of boiling insanity in your ear canal and utterly confound your soul.
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