Reviewed by Eric Saeger
Microwaving the Dead Milkmen for Generation Text pretty much on schedule, although this unplugged New Jersey guitar/drums punk duo have a darker edge, obsessed not with booger-fingered AIDS jokes but uber-emo concerns, from taking steroids in the hope of impressing a Snooki-like bimbo to the joyful fantasy of beating dad to death with a baseball bat. From what I see, the quandary posed by these two fellers revolves around whether such a thing can be taken seriously, demanding a vague measure of artistic respect while hawking sounds right out of Presidents of the United States of America’s dweeby playbook, Brian Sella’s schoolyard-punchbag vocals evoking Weird Al and not Pavement. Eh, you get it by now, skater-boi tongue-in-cheekiness without a whole lot of humor, an idea mounted on the broken-down deconstructionist vibe that’s common as bong hits at Bonnaroo. Someone’s going to hit this shtick out of the park; may as well be these guys, sure.
Grade: B
