The Kidney Thieves

(BMG)
by Chris Best

In an old issue of this magazine, I went on about the new cheese metal being Goth-oriented. Well, I have another argument in my favor: Strippers. More and more, I see Goth-looking strippers scrambling for jobs in America’s titty-bars. The metal chick stripper still exists and is quite a popular commodity, but they aren’t the new thing like they were in the ’80s. They’ve lost the “bad girl” image to the Goth strippers who make them look merely cheesy.

What did that last paragraph have to do with The Kidney Thieves? Did the singer use to strip? I don’t know… I don’t think so. What that last outburst was meant to do was to alert all the Goth strippers of America that there is a new source for dancing material. Just like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson have become boring clichés and bands like Rammstein sound like Laibach covered by Ministry on a cloudy day without smack (translation: a sad, pathetic cliché), The Kidney Thieves are following their influences into hilarious and oblivious self-parody like Whitesnake opening for the Crüe on the 1987 Girls, Girls, Girls tour.

“OK,” you tell me, “they’re not too original. But do they do what they do well?” Yeah, they sound good. I especially like the dirty guitar sound they use. Where most guitar players are going for that slick and crunchy sound, the Kidney Thieves add some character to their guitar parts. The vocals are a nice change of pace as well, seeing as how one might expect some bald guy with a gut bellowing about some dude who sucks, hearing a strong female voice is a nice surprise. When the CD ended I wasn’t too moved. My stripper friends like it, though, so hey, they can fight over it.