Techno Takeover 30

Bulwark Bazooka - Wumpscut 

Casual reminder this was written earlier in the month and I just had horrible writers block and didn't finish it until now...

I really wanted to review this a while ago but school kicked me in the butt and I was way too stressed to form any sort of opinion on this album other than my original fangirling response. It's been almost three weeks since Bulwark Bazooka was released and my general opinion has not changed much. I really enjoy this ten song album and the stuff I don't like isn't that bad.

"Bulwark Bazooka," is not for the faint of heart, which is why I've come up with alternative meanings for most of the songs on here. I have the lyric booklet, fought iTunes tooth and nail for it and all it did was make me question life. "Rubber Corpse," has two of the most horrifying choruses out of any song I have ever heard in my life. Yet if you listen to the the catchy beat, don't have the lyric booklet, and can't understand some of the words because (insert reason here) that fact wouldn't be known. Curious as to what the lyrics are well here are the verses:

"I got a deal for you, I got a clue. I got a dead one oh yes it's true.

I got a corpse down there with a bad smell.

I reserved human flesh oh I can tell."

"Downstairs at Eric's I put it in wax, upstairs at mommy's I erase the tracks.

Of my latest fancy of my latest joke.

To late to revive it to late for evoke." 
 

That is set to a catchy beat and chorus, but the chorus is addicting as all hell and it is why I decided "Rubber Corpse" is about taxidermy... clearly forgetting about "upstairs at mommy's I erase the tracks," and the fact that someone might have murdered someone as a joke and the person thinks it is funny.

In all seriousness, "Rubber Corpse" is on my list of Wumpscut songs new listeners should listen to. Lyrical content aside, it's not too crazy musically and it's catchy. If you're new to Wumpscut, it is definitely a song to check out. Also if you're new to Wumpscut, how the heck did you find this album first and how are you not scared out of your mind?

If the first song didn't scare you, then "Furunkel Lolita," will probably make you feel a little weird... Because most people know what the term Lolita means. But I don't know how Furunkel fits into the meaning of it. It means boil. Those two words can not mean the same thing thrown together in this song's context. It can not be a person who looks like an underage child, or is underage with boils being found sexually attractive. That's horrifying, the giggling children in the beginning don't help either. This is also my favorite song from "Bulwark". It grabbed my attention and kept hold of it with just a short piece of the last chorus all those weeks ago. It was this song that made me determined to review it.

Tress means a lock of a woman's hair.

"Hell is what awaits me if (when) I touch (all) your tress." Not hell is what awaits me if I touch your dress, hell is what happens if and when this persons touches someone's hair. Their hair is that tempting, not the dress, the piece of clothing that would be most tempting to touch or maybe their cheek, the tress. This isn't meant to fit a rhyme either.

"I can not resist your young charm, come to me to find my true warmth.

Heaven is what your young body flesh promises, Hell is what awaits me if I touch all your tress" or "Hell is what awaits me when I touch your tress."

The hair has been touched okay, and this is weird. I am not okay with the weird. But this will never stop being an awesome song. Nothing about these lyrics are okay. But it has to sound amazing, it has to have the amazing electronic horns happening, and the crazy nature of the chorus with a small throwback to "In The Night." "Furunkel Lolita" is creepy, intense, and it is my favorite song. The struggle is real.

Skipping Cross of Iron, Atrocity Dancer, and Heresy, because "Supergurl" "Vienna," and "Flesh Trench" need to be discussed. "Supergurl," is growing on me. This song (and "Rubber Corpse) features vocals by Aleta Welling (she's credited on a bunch of Wumpscut songs, one of them being "Death Panacea" from Woman and Satan First.) I had mixed feelings about this. I thought it was kind of annoying as well as "Flesh Trench" and "Vienna," but with time I changed my mind and now I like it. The lyrics aren't up on websites yet which is strange, and I am terrible with hearing lyrics and understanding them without the words in front of me. If I understand anything it's in pieces and I can't make sense of it, sometimes not all the time. This song was one of those cases, and the lyrics are sort of sad at first and then it gets dark, really dark. This is song almost reaches Furunkel Lolita levels of not okay, but it seems to be the most obvious song out of all the songs with actual lyrics. There is a woman, out of someone's league, and I'm guessing she's an independent woman who don't need no man, and she ends up killed. Or... it's one of the songs that is 'if I can't have you (no matter what the reason is' no one can have you,' and I am not okay with this fictional premeditated murder being thrown in my face.

"Soon it is too much how you thrill me,

With a touch too much, you will kill me,

Soon a glancing touch, it will thrill you

With a lethal touch I will kill you."

With that out of the way, "Flesh Trench," is confusing as all hell and I decided it is about discovering a kink you didn't know you had before with a partner that enjoys said kink as well and they both think they are nothing and they want to share the nothing.

"You are nothing, I am nothing, you are nothing, let's share."

You can't share nothing, nothing is just... well nothing. It isn't a physical thing. You'll just be left with more nothing and how does this relate to having a strange kink?

"Come be a flesh trench only a sex mensh,

Come and submit to me."

That's the first chorus of the song. A mench is a person. Urban dictionary says so. The word is spelled wrong in the digital booklet?

Anyways, I thought this was annoying at first as mentioned before. I can't put my finger on what changed it for me, maybe the way it sounds like he's growling the verses, or singing into a fan that is silent. Also as strange as the chorus is, I love it, the music is perfect, and his accent kind of comes through in certain spots and it's kind of attractive...

"Vienna" is a song made entirely of samples from things I can't find because I don't speak whatever language it is in. It might be German, it isn't mentioned in the digital booklet where any of the samples come from. And to be honest this was a very boring song until it got stuck in my head. That is the only reason I can tolerate "Vienna," and the one sound effect that happens at 1:48 is pretty cool.

Pagan Crusade is the one song I was COMPLETELY wrong about originally. There are lyrics, and Rudy is singing said lyrics. It is not instrumental like it seemed to be. I feel silly for thinking it was completely instrumental. Other than that, the song is just kind of there. It doesn't really stand out it never grabbed my attention like "Furunkel Lolita," or "Rubber Corpse," did. I don't listen to it as much as those two songs either.

And then there are the songs I don't particularly like or feel like I want to like but can't seem to care for. "RTL Hariti" the song about is an Iranic ogress and Bactrian (Peshawari) mythological figure who eats your children or then feeds them to her own children, then one of her kids goes missing and she converts to Buddism when a monk shows her the error of her ways. And she vows to protect them as a result. There are not enough lyrics for this song to be nearly seven minutes long and have the same music looping once the lyrics end. Something has to change in order to keep me interested but nothing changes drastically and I quickly lose interest in "RTL Hariti."

Don't ask me what the RTL means, I'm still waiting for some sort of answer to all my annoying questions I ask Wumpscut in his facebook fan page.

"Atrocity Dancer" and "Heresy" are the other two songs I don't care for, but they are far from terrible. All I can say about Atrocity dancer is that it is the only song I found the source of one of the quotes. It is from the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence. Also why is the C-bomb dropped for the sake of a rhyme? For real though that word always makes me uncomfortable... but that's just me being weird. I feel bad for "Atrocity Dancer" because I really love Rudy's vocals on the verses, but I hate music and everything going on in the chorus.

Heresy has a great start but it gets boring halfway through. There are no set lyrics and Google has no idea what the quotes are from so I'm back to where I started. The sad part is the audio clips are in clear English for the most part. "Ejected from the communion of (something like a holy mother charged) as a disciple of Satan." Google has no idea what I'm talking about and I don't understand why, it's not hard to hear at all except for a few words. Anyways, The song feels too long and boring for how many times it loops without something different. The song goes until 2:47 before "What's the difference?" is repeated a few times and then it just kind of ends awkwardly after the quote from the beginning of the song shows up again.

If anyone is curious I just wasted four pages getting this silly review out. So here's a brief summary of what I actually thought of the album. Wumpscut's always been creepy but the creep meter was cranked up on this album and I like it. If you're already a Wumpscut fan you're well aware what is in store for you. If you're not, this is not an album to listen to as your first exposure because it probably will scare you away before you realize how awesome some of his previous stuff was, unless you like creepy, then this album is for you.