Extra Life - Made Flesh

by Maarten Schiethart

published: 30 / 5 / 2010

Label: Loaf Recordings
Format: CD

Self-indulgent and dull second album from New York experimental art rock collective, Extra Life

Review

I'm that old that I remember the music which ultimately inspired the punk movement as revolt went into style. Lengthy wanderings of progressive rock, trying to act clever and incorporating too many bits and pieces for their own good, marked the pre-1976 era. I try at all cost to refrain from making comparisons which is how reviews tend to be written as journalists cannot find words, lacking the vocabulary and understanding of words, and thus resort to simply mentioning things as "sounds like this or that". So, Extra Life made me think back to the mid 1970s. Touches of medieval music that don't compare to Roy Wood on The Electric Light Orchestra's first two albums, humpty dumpty quasi intellectualism plus loud trash that Mike Patton probably ditched, make up a well produced yet tedious effort. Since 'Made Flesh' is a LOAF label release, it surely can't be all that bad, I hear you cry. True, 'Head Shrinker' steps out of line as an introvert moment of redemption but the over-the-top 'The Body Is True' and its limited and would-be medieval chants come across as hilariously misplaced yankee noodles who as a matter of fact weren't even around during medieval times. 'Made Flesh' only made me remember the music of Mike Patton, An Albatross and gifted maniacs of such ilk.