Gorillas are the nice ones. You can teach a gorilla to speak in sign language, like the world-famous Koko. You can give a gorilla a kitten, and it will love and nurture it. It will give it a cute name like "all ball" or "smoky." Apes, on the other hand, are fucking vicious. You can sing to an ape, but it will only fling its dung in your face, pound its chest, and masturbate furiously. You can give an ape a kitten, but it will only beat it into a bloody, lifeless pulp, and then consume that pulp like a tasty milkshake.

Or maybe my perception of Apes has been altered by this, the debut record from the sneering, posturing rockers bearing the name of the oft-maligned primates. For those of you who'd think it impossible to cock-rock without a guitar, the Apes prove that having a chick with an organ (er...) can incline a band towards rocking out just as much as having a dirty guy with a ponytail on "lead" guitar. In fact, the organ works wonders for the Apes, filling out their sound to the point where it becomes a massive, towering entity that provides perfect backing for lead singer Paul Weil's spitting quasi-antics.

I use the term "quasi-antics" because the Apes still seem to be working out what exactly their antics are. They like to say "The Apes" a lot. A lot of their songs have the word "ape" in them. At live shows, they speak of "Sugar Mountain." They wear camouflage gear, sometimes capes. Weil takes off his shirt, revealing his fine, chiseled body. No, really, he does have a fine, chiseled body, but that only makes the shirt-removal seem more gratuitous than that conducted by the less chiseled Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav.

Indeed, Les Savy Fav have some very close ties to the Apes-- they signed the band to bassist Syd Butler's Frenchkiss label, and are thanked in the Apes' final "thank you's" track, "Apes Salute." But musically, the Apes follow a path much more straightforward than that of their mentors. Les Savy Fav have an amazing knack for crafting dynamic, off-kilter punk songs; the Apes just want to rock.

And rock they do. At its heart, The Fugue in the Fog is a simple riff-rock album. There's really not all that much in the way of vocal melody, as most of the vocals here are practically spoken and highly distorted. So the issue really comes down to the quality of the riffs themselves, and the songs containing these riffs.

Unfortunately, The Fugue in the Fog doesn't succeed in its execution as much as it does in its setup. At times, the band's sheer energy carries the songs. And at other times, the songs are simply pretty damned good. "Blood and Light," the album's most engaging track is, like most of the tracks here, based around a basic central riff. Thankfully, it varies enough to hold your interest. Quite simply put, it's a well-crafted rock song.

The album's opener, "Black Tears," is another fine example of the Apes fully exploring the potential of a single riff. Elsewhere on the album, however, the band tends to rely too heavily on the same played-out pentatonic scale techniques that have been rock staples pretty much since its inception. Led Zeppelin could get away with it 30 years ago, but today's demanding listener expects a bit more.

As far as straight-up rock records go, though, The Fugue in the Fog is damned good. The Apes have forged a relatively distinctive sound, and cranked out a few seriously awesome songs. There's a ridiculous amount of potential here, but oftentimes that potential goes unexplored. Still, the Apes are, without question, entertaining. If they paid a little more attention to actually writing their songs, they could be downright dangerous.

-Matt LeMay, October 10th, 2001