Pinhead Gunpowder, Fahizah [7" EP debut]

Tracks: 1. Future Daydreams 2. Freedom Is 3. Hey Now 4. Big Yellow Taxi

A short and impressionable 4-track debut, Fahizah comes off with a nice, cutting, exciting intro: Beginning with a moronically and yet slightly funny yoga video gimmick of "Bend your knees, rest your knees on your elbows Little bounces with your buttocks 1, 2, 3, 4," the guitars then barge in with 4 hard bangs, and then the music trails off from there, with a cutting, deep, growling voice in the background singing out the crazy thoughts of drummer/lyrics designer Aaron Cometbus (example: now now I want to see/all the skyscrapers and the factories/crumble down to the ground/and we'll go walk around and pick/through the wreckage scattered in the streets). That my friend, is the voice of Mike Kersh (formerly of Fuel), giving the band a hardcore, edgy, fast-paced sound that defines the sound for typical modern rock bands mixing with the taste of hardcore punk rock. Guitars fitting well into each of the songs, their slightly melodic and yet pretty cutting riffs add the pop to the hardcore, at least in the short term.

Aaron Cometbus' lyrics balance easily-related catchiness with eye-opening eloquence. He expresses his thoughts on the world in songs like Freedom Is (example: tell me why there's still a 40-hour work week while unemployment's on the rise?/why do we keep overproducing but still it's hard just to survive?/why does "surplus" food rot while hungry people die?), then on human complacency in the song Hey Now (hey well sometimes life really does suck/but why can't you learn to laugh at your bad luck?/do you want to be depressed/do you want to drown in loneliness?/well I guess you do/you seem to love being in a bad mood/and pouting and stomping through the room/and expecting everyone to drop what they're doing and come and comfort you). Then, going against what one might expect after these 3 songs, the band goes off to a much different place in their last song: A cover of Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi. And guess who's singing it? Billie-Joe Armstrong, famous pop-punker and frontman of Green Day! Yes, it was his very first appearance in the band, and he had yet to earn himself a bigger role in the band, cutting a nice split between himself and Mike in the fair share of performing in future tracks... That is, until Mike would leave the band later on, but that's kind of a different story.

In short, this is an interesting album, discharging 3 pounding, fast and smooth punk and then stomping everyone's mind with surprise at the end, as one could tell with a single listen, breaking the mold of routine to show another strong side of Aaron's genius.

Best Song: Freedom Is

Least Best Song: Big Yellow Taxi