Chevy Heston
Come to Sterilized (CherryDisc)
by Nik Rainey
A kinder, gentler Chevy Heston? Speaking as one who’s suffered the slings, arrows, and outrageous foreskin-piercings of Boston’s most original band, I tend to think otherwise. But we can call it progress. Sure, they still boil pop down to its feral root, the songs tend to max out at under two minutes, and the song titles wouldn’t fit on the card you use to index your mix tapes on. But Come to Sterilized continues to take goosestep-dancing strides, furthering the path blazed by their claustrophonic eponymous debut and the Costello-with-Tourette’s crunch of last year’s Destroy (one of the best CDs of ’95, in my highly biased opinion). You might even call this a rock opera – for a reference point, imagine how Quadrophenia would’ve sounded if Townshend were an irredeemable glue-sniffer. (Don’t laugh, he’s got the schnozz for it.) It’s sort of like a Raymond Chandler detective epic with pop-up illustrations by Robert Williams as interpreted by the chromosomes that Syd Barrett left behind when he effervesced into living oblivion. But different. Not sure what differentiates CtS from its predecessors; could be the more mature lyrical stance of co-leaders Matt Martin (ex-Sod) and Zephan Courtney (ex-Stompbox) (and by “mature,” I mean that they use the word “clitoris” instead of “pussy”), or the expanded lineup (keyboard-punch operator Carol Lee in particular infuses many of the songs with a palpably spaced oddity), or just that my system has acclimated itself to the weird alchemy they’ve perfected. Whatever it is, Chevy Heston has further defined its position as the true future of pop music by mixing its standard bases with their acid wit. Do yourself a favor and get within its blast radius post-haste.
