Tripping Daisy – Jesus Hits like the Atom Bomb – Review

Tripping Daisy

Jesus Hits like the Atom Bomb (Island)
by Jamie Kiffel

This sounds as if the members of Tripping Daisy were sniffing airplane glue and playing musical charades one day in front of the tape recorder when someone called out, “Butthole Surfers!” The result is an over-extended length of meandering, mushy guitar noise, reams of moody organ use, strings of wrangly guitars, miles of dead air, bump-in-the-road halting vocals, and a tunnelful of tin can reverb. The lyrics resemble that which is produced by someone who needs to write a 250-word book report but who didn’t actually read the book (i.e. “This book was very good to read for the type of people who would be really interested in reading it.”). The band might be trying for psychedelia or maybe for a live effect (lots of running and jumping around in front of the recording equipment); the result is a knotty tangle of sounds accompanying lines such as “these little tiny men crawl on me” and “I can’t believe it ‘appened to me. It’s in my heart, believe me.” Much of the disc sounds as if it is caught between stations. One might do better to save $15 and rig up that busted VW radio to produce your own, personal Tripping Daisy musical extravaganza.
(825 8th Avenue, 27th Fl. New York, NY 10019)