Pere Ubu

Why I Hate Women (Smog Veil)

Pere Ubu singer Dave Thomas wanted their latest album to re-create a Jim Thompson novel, which could explain the cold title and grifter’s heart that lies beneath the Cleveland group’s musings. Pere Ubu has never really played accessible since the late Seventies, when Thomas coined the term “avant-garage” to ward off the press. And on their first album since 2002’s St. Arkansas, there’s still no hard and fast plan to describe the skull racket of “Caroleen” or the stabbing beat of “Two Girls (One Bar)” or the pinched trill of Thomas’ vocals. Somehow, the druggy “Babylonian Warehouses” and ominous “Love Song,” on which Thomas whispers, “My eyes are growing tentacles,” mesh with the grating “Mona,” where he sounds in need of a Lactaid. The characters aren’t as raw, the pulp’s a little thin, but the Texas-bred writer would be proud of this very Ubu delivery: “I know that it’s you. … I fear it’s you.”

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This article appears in November 10 • 2006.

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