Foetus Symphony Orchestra

York (Thirsty Ear)
by Chris Best

This five-track piece is a “meditation” on J.G. Thirlwell’s ultra-shitty neighborhood in Brooklyn. The piece could have been a 43-minute version of Fear’s “I Love Living in the City,” but thanks to great composition and an amazing band, the songs actually gain a symphonic quality, though a nightmarish one. The band itself is not too strange, guitars, bass, drums, brass (Holy fuck! It’s the Foetus Ska Revue!) but what they do together is grand and beautiful. The songs build from narratives at the beginning of each movement (narrator Lydia Lunch) into crashing climaxes that just set off another movement.