By The Barbs
This must be the aural equivalent of what happens when one of those people who try to make themselves look like Dracula smiles 'cause they're, y'know, happy and stuff.
Playful sleaze is a good way to describe The Barbs' sound with Amy Casey's yelping, coquettish vocals and the speeding, heaving, grinning dinosaur of a riff which thrashes its way through "Massive Crush" like that goddamn terrifying velociraptor or whatever it was in Jurassic Park that gave me nightmares for weeks as a kid.
It's a tongue-in-cheek, scummy, scuzzy, dirty, filthy, trashy, slutty brat of a song. B-side "Guns and Violence" takes the hacksaw bass to further reaches of ear-splitting adrenaline with rebellious, sing/spit-along choruses.
To be honest, I have absolutely no idea why I don't hate this, but then I have absolutely no idea why I don't really love it either. Maybe I'm bipolar, or perhaps this is just The Barbs' cheeky way of making sure that, like 'em or not, they get firmly tangled up in your head.
Like tourmates The Rocks, The Barbs are baffling, being something I should dislike intensely for their scrappy, throwaway lyrics and snotty delivery, but instead find myself spinning around the room to wearing copious amounts of eyeliner yelling "I've got a massive crush... on... you!" Well... nearly. On arrival at The Vine these people will either rip the place up or get laughed offstage. If I go, I'll be the girl sat staring into my drink in absolute, total confusion. Are they good fun? Or are they a bad joke? Somewhere in-between I reckon, but then I really have no clue.
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On 18th September 2004 at 12:31 Dave LMS wrote...
www.mothertongue.tv/massive_crush_video.html
The link above is to the video. By all accounts this was released in August 2003, but we only just received it; although, there is an album out. Anyway, I like this song (via the video) so just sharing it with you - at The Vine at some point I hear.
