Griddle
Klimty Favela
Your Permanent Records

Humour in music is treacherous ground. How many good bands can you think of that use humour well? I can only think of Ween and The Flaming Lips. Well, here's another one for the list: Griddle.

Klimty Favela, accompanied by a surreal comic, is a concept album about, er... a multinational company selling products that make your teeth grow and explode. Or at least that's what I think it's about. In much the same way as Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was only tangentially related to the titular struggle, Klimty Favela uses the bizarre storyline as a wobbly structure on which to hang all manner of colourful songforms about doctors, porpoises, love and death.

The thing that I like most about this album is that it's utterly goofy without being irritating, allowing you to swing from bombastic rock ("City Made of Teeth") to Beatlesesque psych ("Porpoise Song"), with all the genres you know and love squashed up inbetween. It's odd, catchy, and really daft, but in a good way.

From one listen to the next there will be another song that will set up residence in your head, spinning cartwheels and letting off fireworks. Yesterday's wonky culprit was the epic "Then Their Heads Exploded". My current contender is "Dr Becky Bolanky", who seems to be a heroine of the story. Whatever - it's a great tune.

If your brain in feeling crushed by reality, put it on the Griddle...

Copyright © 2006 Tim Clarke