SXSW Record Reviews

Fuckemos

Airshow 2000 (Man's Ruin)

Many entertainers lament the fact that you can never please everybody. Especially if you're in a band called the Fuckemos. Much like raw monkey meat, the Austin quartet's loud and abusive Rohypnol rock is an acquired taste at best. But the Fuckemos can at least take solace in having a good shot at offending everyone with their fifth release. Airshow 2000 chooses its targets with about as much discretion as Lieutenant Calley at My Lai. First up on the highlight reel is "Amputeen," a graphic ode to statutorily suspect apotemnophilia, in which the reaper-like, pitch-shifted voice of Russell Porter intones, "Give me a backrub with your hot stub." Then there's "Yer Family," a tragic tale of boy-loses-girl-after-having-sex-with-her-entire-family, sung to a tune not unlike the 1985 Kiss hit, "Tears Are Falling." More bad Eighties rock references can be found in the title track, which borrows jet fighter imagery from Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" and Queen's "One Vision," only the jets crash and burn in the Fuckemos' version. The one song on Airshow 2000 that approaches rehabilitation is "C.U.C. Me," a synth-laden teen tragedy monster ballad that rivals Ozzy and Lita Ford's "If I Close My Eyes Forever" in terms of sheer overblown pathos. But nothing quite compares to the album-closing "Honky in the Sky," a race- and religion-baiting folk bomb co-written by ex-Leaving Trains bassist Whitey Sims and sung in an affected Kingfish dialect. Airshow 2000 is a chainsaw humor regatta floating on a sea of foul-smelling effluvia. In other words, for better or worse, more of what the Fuckemos do best. (Friday, March 16, Emo's Jr., 8pm)