I tried really hard to like this record. Lord, how I tried. As I looked at the mildly amusing cover art, I spotted the 24 track listings and had a good chortle. Any band with song titles like "I Just Wanna Puke on the Stereo," "Whatshisname Hearts the Frumpies," and "Eunich Nights" has got to be good on some level, right? And Kill Rock Stars... they're a quality record label, y'know? To top it all off, Toby Vail fronts this band and she was once in the awesome Bikini Kill, so this would presumably be something worth my precious listening time...

I was wrong. Holy fucking shit was I wrong.

The Frumpies come off as the resident band for a hospital for mentally challenged children. Dig the crappy two- or three- chord songs, Vail's incomprehensible wailing (the lyric sheet reveals such lyrical gems as "Gonna take you on a boat/ Make you treats and treat you right/ Wants to take you home tonight." She's a real cutie pie), and a recording job that sounds like every sound is filtered through two giant ass cheeks. A few folks might take some sort of kitschy delight in this kind of talentless foo, but the only use I have for this disc is as a glorified ass seperator.

Of course, the involvement of Toby Vail is the most disappointing thing about this digital slab of horror. Unlike her former bandmate Kathleen Hanna (now known to the masses as Julie Ruin), Vail seems content with doing half- assed self caricatures for chump fucking change. This was no fun. No fun at all.

-Samir Khan

"I Just Wanna Puke On The Stereo"

[Real Audio Stream]