You know what they say: beware of any album whose title sounds like a line from Napoleon Dynamite. It's not that the music on
Ferocious Eagle's debut album is bad -- it's just that it sounds as if they've been working so hard on making it quirky and weird that they forgot to make it interesting. It is kind of fun: there's plenty of crackling energy on display here, and at their best they pull you in almost against your will. This happens most effectively on the title track, on the punky "Lionhearted," and on the twistedly
Beatlesque "Transformer," which also quotes from the opening theme to Sesame Street. But the gestures that seem to be meant to disarm just leave you kind of uneasy instead, and not necessarily in a good way: what's up with the song title "Rape Whistle" (and repeated lines that sound like "Take it back/Take that!")? And is "Be Not Weary, Be Not Weak" a genuinely devotional song, or is it an unfunny parody of a devotional song? And why couldn't "This Song Is a Train Wreck" have remained the fun, crunchy instrumental it started out as, rather than devolving into a song about swallowing or something? There's definitely a market for this kind of noisy whimsy, but most listeners may be left wondering what all the noise is about. ~ Rick Anderson