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Pistol for a
Paycheck: Into the Arms of the Mother of Hate
On initially hearing the first minute of Into the Arms of the Mother of Hate, I was startled, then letdown, then pleasantly surprised. I was startled because the beginning of the album has a majestic sounding organ that instantly took me back to Pink Floyds forgotten masterpiece Atom Heart Mother. I was letdown, because the organ cuts out after fifteen seconds to the dissonant croaking of distorted garage rock guitar riffs. I was then pleasantly surprised to find that I was suddenly (re)captivated by some awesomely energetic guitar riffs and vocal hooks that boast a fusion of raucous punk with straight-ahead heavy garage rock. Now you might expect an album called Into the Arms of the Mother of Hate to be some kind of seething manifesto of unmitigated rage. I guess my standards for what constitutes angry music are pretty high, but Pistol for a Paychecks album strikes me as more of a rowdy album with some biting lyrics. As an example of said lyrics, consider Poetic Justice: And all you do is hate yourself / So why dont you kill yourself and make room for someone else. As to the quality of the songs, I dont think that the rest of the album lives up to the energetic promise of the first song. But fortunately, that doesnt mean there are no nice moments. In particular, Our Love Was a Funeral is one of those of rockers that, for all its layers of cacophony and distortion, is simply a very pretty song. The closer Pretty Ugly, which is also the longest track on the album, even shows a hint of instrumental dynamics. Overall, the better moments on Into the Arms demonstrate that Pistol for a Paycheck has a knack for creating garage-oriented punk that is energetic and catchy without sounding cheap or uninteresting.
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