"Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot but end up as a parody. We started up as a parody, but ended up as a revolution."
- Happy-Tom
Scandinavian Leather (2003, Burning Heart)
Circa 2003:
Circa now:
I hated this album when it came out in 2003, as a Turbo-obsessed college student. Me and my roommate/best bud/fellow Turbojugend spent hours ranting and raving about how much it licked ass (and not intentionally). Today, I'm more forgiving (seeing these songs in the live context helped), but the wretched opener "Wipe it 'Til it Bleeds" still serves as a microcosm of the album for me: a slicked-back, heavily polished, watered-down version of Apocalypse Dudes. It's got a lot of variety and more than a few great melodies, but it lacks A.D.'s chesthair and virility; it's like a giant penis made out of rare gems, flaccid in spite of its own majesty. It's not all bad though. The second song, "Gimme Some", should've been the opener, delivering the kind of dark, razor-edged bubblegum that Turbonegro has always excelled at. ("Locked Down" also recaptures some of the black magic of Apocalypse Dudes.) But the biggest problem with Scandinavian Leather--and the guy had, admittedly, been through a lot--is Hank's vocals. The man from hell just sounds tired as hell here, and the results feel phoned-in. At the end of the day, I think Scandinavian Leather would've worked better as an EP or a mini-album. It seems stretched too thin, like they should've held back longer before dropping another album; too much, too soon.
Party Animals (2005, Burning Heart)
"All My Friends are Dead" is one of the 10 best Turbonegro tunes of all time, a piledriving Red Army hulk of a song, catchy as hell, full of snake-charming Euroboy money shots--and best of all, Hank sounds like his old self again! I worried it was a fluke, but "Blow Me (Like the Wind)" is even wilder, sounding very much like Happy-Tom's description of the album: "It's like the best bits of the Rolling Stones mixed with the best bits of Black Flag, but composed by Shostakovich, Stalin's in-house composer." Unfortunately, the album never recaptures the heights of the first two songs, but it's a step closer to the Turbonegro return to form I had hoped for in 2002. It's still very much part of the top-heavy "Apocalypse trilogy" that began with Apocalypse Dudes and continued with Scandinavian Leather, but Hank sounds so much more inspired here than he did on the last album that he breathes life into even the half-baked songs. That's the problem with this album: there just aren't as many great pop melodies on this one as Scandinavian Leather; it's a very straight-forward hard rock album, especially towards the midsection. (The flip side of that is that there are no songs on here as turdly as "Train of Flesh" or "I Want Everything.") If you mixed and matched the best bits from this and Scandinavian Leather, you'd probably five-Tom effort on your hands--but this is another step towards the true rebirth of darkness.
Retox (2007, Scandinavian Leather)
(Maybe even 4.5 Toms)"People say we've been making the same record for 10 years, that's not right. We've been making the same record for 4 or 5 years." So true. But the "Apocalypse trilogy" is over, and Retox is the best and most consistent album TRBNGR have made since getting back together. With its air-raid-siren guitars, pinch harmonics, and a chorus that would sound appropriate blaring from a Panzer steamrolling over Poland, "We're Gonna Drop the Atomb Bomb" is an awesome, surprisingly heavy opener that comes on like At The Gates covering The Weirdos. It's also definitely a subtly more metal record overall, but think Judas Priest rather than Entombed. Post-reunion Turbonegro has never lacked for polish, but the songs on Retox sound as if a lot more thought went into them, rather than being dashed off in between orgies with well-muscled sailors. There are a surprising number of hits here, stretched over the whole album. Two of the best moments come deep in side B: "Hot and Filthy" is positively Dudes-ian, and the wicked, minor-key "Boys From Nowhere" is like "Armed and Fairly Well-Equipped" part III. Since it dropped, Retox has grown on me with every listen--it really is the Turbo comeback album, and in all honesty I might actually like it more than Apocalypse Dudes. It was also fated to be the last Turbo album with Hank on vocals, and even though he was the band's third singer, it's tough to imagine what they'll sound like without him.
- Happy-Tom
Scandinavian Leather (2003, Burning Heart)
Circa 2003:
Circa now:
I hated this album when it came out in 2003, as a Turbo-obsessed college student. Me and my roommate/best bud/fellow Turbojugend spent hours ranting and raving about how much it licked ass (and not intentionally). Today, I'm more forgiving (seeing these songs in the live context helped), but the wretched opener "Wipe it 'Til it Bleeds" still serves as a microcosm of the album for me: a slicked-back, heavily polished, watered-down version of Apocalypse Dudes. It's got a lot of variety and more than a few great melodies, but it lacks A.D.'s chesthair and virility; it's like a giant penis made out of rare gems, flaccid in spite of its own majesty. It's not all bad though. The second song, "Gimme Some", should've been the opener, delivering the kind of dark, razor-edged bubblegum that Turbonegro has always excelled at. ("Locked Down" also recaptures some of the black magic of Apocalypse Dudes.) But the biggest problem with Scandinavian Leather--and the guy had, admittedly, been through a lot--is Hank's vocals. The man from hell just sounds tired as hell here, and the results feel phoned-in. At the end of the day, I think Scandinavian Leather would've worked better as an EP or a mini-album. It seems stretched too thin, like they should've held back longer before dropping another album; too much, too soon.
Party Animals (2005, Burning Heart)
"All My Friends are Dead" is one of the 10 best Turbonegro tunes of all time, a piledriving Red Army hulk of a song, catchy as hell, full of snake-charming Euroboy money shots--and best of all, Hank sounds like his old self again! I worried it was a fluke, but "Blow Me (Like the Wind)" is even wilder, sounding very much like Happy-Tom's description of the album: "It's like the best bits of the Rolling Stones mixed with the best bits of Black Flag, but composed by Shostakovich, Stalin's in-house composer." Unfortunately, the album never recaptures the heights of the first two songs, but it's a step closer to the Turbonegro return to form I had hoped for in 2002. It's still very much part of the top-heavy "Apocalypse trilogy" that began with Apocalypse Dudes and continued with Scandinavian Leather, but Hank sounds so much more inspired here than he did on the last album that he breathes life into even the half-baked songs. That's the problem with this album: there just aren't as many great pop melodies on this one as Scandinavian Leather; it's a very straight-forward hard rock album, especially towards the midsection. (The flip side of that is that there are no songs on here as turdly as "Train of Flesh" or "I Want Everything.") If you mixed and matched the best bits from this and Scandinavian Leather, you'd probably five-Tom effort on your hands--but this is another step towards the true rebirth of darkness.
Retox (2007, Scandinavian Leather)
(Maybe even 4.5 Toms)"People say we've been making the same record for 10 years, that's not right. We've been making the same record for 4 or 5 years." So true. But the "Apocalypse trilogy" is over, and Retox is the best and most consistent album TRBNGR have made since getting back together. With its air-raid-siren guitars, pinch harmonics, and a chorus that would sound appropriate blaring from a Panzer steamrolling over Poland, "We're Gonna Drop the Atomb Bomb" is an awesome, surprisingly heavy opener that comes on like At The Gates covering The Weirdos. It's also definitely a subtly more metal record overall, but think Judas Priest rather than Entombed. Post-reunion Turbonegro has never lacked for polish, but the songs on Retox sound as if a lot more thought went into them, rather than being dashed off in between orgies with well-muscled sailors. There are a surprising number of hits here, stretched over the whole album. Two of the best moments come deep in side B: "Hot and Filthy" is positively Dudes-ian, and the wicked, minor-key "Boys From Nowhere" is like "Armed and Fairly Well-Equipped" part III. Since it dropped, Retox has grown on me with every listen--it really is the Turbo comeback album, and in all honesty I might actually like it more than Apocalypse Dudes. It was also fated to be the last Turbo album with Hank on vocals, and even though he was the band's third singer, it's tough to imagine what they'll sound like without him.
Small Feces (2005, Bitzcore)
Like any odds-and-sods collection, Small Feces is for the completist, with plenty of stuff you've heard before--but it also features a few Turbo classics that are scarcely available anywhere else. Of the 42 songs here, a whopping 16 are covers. Most of them are well-executed but unambitious ("War on the Terraces", "Suffragette City", "I Don't Care About You", Ebba Gron's anti-capitalist barnburner "Staten Och Kapitalet"--the latter is a truly inspired choice though), but a standout is Turbo's rendition of "Gimme Shelter", which they turn into a Brainbombs-style mongoloid stomper that really plays up the eerie darkness of the original. And then there is "(I Fucked) Betty Page", one of Turbonegro's greatest and noisiest songs, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics made legitimately creepy by how vicious Hank and the boys sound; it really sounds like it was written at the same time as "Librium Love" or "Kiss the Knife." And the unreleased songs on Small Feces are all surprisingly excellent, from the infectious, almost pop-punk "Kick It Out" to the raging D-beat thrash of "Let it Burn". But best of all is the absolutely astonishing "My Hometown", a tender and wistful minute-and-a-half gem that I've used to instantly transform people's opinions on Turbonegro. Again, it's probably best not to bother unless you're already a jugend, but if you are, Small Feces is extremely fun and (mostly) essential listening.
What does the future hold for the denim recruits, especially now that they've parted ways with Hank Von Helvete? It's hard to say, but it's possible that the change could be just the shot in the arm Turbo's been looking for these past few years--and going from this and other videos, I have to say I like the cut of new frontman Tony Sylvester's jib. (On the same uploader's video of "Denim Demon", he sounds like Damien from Fucked Up!) The future looks bright, if you dig darkness!
