Maroon Weekly

CD Review: Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? by The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Brian Jonestown Massacre has been making music for two decades and recently released their eleventh studio album, Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

The title is an intriguing question coming from a band that is steeped in images of the sixties.  BJM, as they are known by fans, has made a name for themselves with their psychedelic rock sounds.

As usual, the band has a different lineup this go around, but lead singer Anton Newcombe returns to head the production.  Maybe he should have opted out.

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? is a plodding, obscenity-laced album that runs way too long.  The imitative ’60s vibe and Euro tech beats feel like a slap in the face to a period that gave us the most innovative musicians that have ever played.

The opening track, “Tempo 116.7 (Reaching for Dangerous Levels of Sobriety)” gets the record off to an almost enjoyable start.  The robotic Eastern sound makes you feel like you’re in India circa 3000 AD.  The song is almost entirely instrumental, that is until Newcombe breaks in with an F bomb.

The jolting expletive is barely discernable, as most of the lyrics on the album are, but it is there and for seemingly no reason.  Or maybe there is a reason: to prepare you for later.  Three of the song titles on the album contain the F word.

The third song on the record, “Let’s Go F***ing Mental,” repeats that phrase and “la la la” over and over again, to the point where you’ll want to slam your iPod against your own face just to get it to stop playing.

Now this is not a review by Tipper Gore, but when the only lyrics you can think of contain the same curse word, repeated endlessly, maybe it is time to give up songwriting.

Even with the countless influences that they try to draw upon, they cannot come up with anything interesting.  “White Music” is the psych band’s obligatory ambient drone of a song and it is as boring as it is predictable.

The one bright spot on the entire album is in “Felt Tipped Pen Pictures of UFOs” and that only because of a peaceful keyboard overlaid with the voice of John Lennon.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre may fancy themselves as carriers of the torch lit by Pink Floyd, but BJM’s pseudo- sixties image cannot hide their downright bad music.

So when the album title asks Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?, the answer should be quite obvious.  It was you, Brian Jonestown Massacre.  And may God have mercy on your soul.

1 out of 5 Stars.