No one believes themselves to be evil. The killer keeps pet pigeons. The thief drops change in a bum's cup as karmic reimbursement. Even Lucille Bluth would occasionally shed a tear if she could spare the moisture. Maybe Baudelaire put it best: the Devil's greatest trick is convincing people he doesn't exist. But Baudelaire never dealt with Ikea parking lots, petroleum executives, or Reddit trolls.
Tobacco's greatest trick is reminding people that not only does the devil exist, he keeps a Pittsburgh address. Since Black Moth Super Rainbow came to attention with 2007's Dandelion Gum, the band's demon-throated frontman has mastered the art of sounding sinister. He's so upfront with his intent that the group's new Kickstarter-funded album Cobra Juicy has a song called "I Think I'm Evil". He also named himself after the most pernicious herb since hemlock.
Of course, you can point to any number of metal bands or horrorcore rap groups who have brandished the triple six as a way to sell records and satisfy their evil urges. What's unique about Black Moth Super Rainbow is the balance achieved between the grotesque and the beautiful. This is not as easy as it sounds. Descend too deeply into darkness, and you run the risk of becoming fright-night schlock. Lean too delicately on seraphic chords and melodies and you lack menace. And should you lack the pop sensibilities, your satanic majesty's request can get exhausting. Examine the more underwhelming moments of the Odd Future catalog to see what happens when N.E.R.D. never quite meet nihilism.
From jump, Black Moth Super Rainbow have been unfairly tarred as gimmickry. This stems from several reasons. First, there are the names sounding straight from an un-purchased Adult Swim pilot. Tobacco, Iffernaut, Ryan Graveface, Bullsmear, and the Seven Fields of Aphelion. Ex-members include Father Hummingbird and Power Pill Fist (who presumably left to join Danny Brown's Bruiser Brigade). Then there's the band's semi-anonymity and penchant for shrouding themselves in darkness, wearing masks, and performing backed by 80s aerobics videos. Yet it's mostly the voice. Tobacco uses a vocoder on every song. This isn't the Teutonic turtle-necked modulation of Kraftwerk, the mad-scientist whimsy of Bruce Haack, or the funky lothario of Roger Troutman. This is when the robot supposed to solve your problems goes awry; it's the musical equivalent of the animated automatons at Itchy & Scratchyland attacking the Simpsons.
Slot Black Moth Super Rainbow as psychedelic at your own peril. There are no yawning guitar solos and the songs rarely slink past the four-minute mark. Black Moth Super Rainbow triangulate early Beck and the Air of the "Kelly Watch the Stars" era. But neither cognate flashes the crooked smile of Cobra Juicy. Even the title itself seeks to pair the contradictory ideas of vitamins and venom.
Opening track "Windshield Smasher" features vocals that sound like gorgons moaning, paired with synthesizers that sound like they got bubble gum got stuck in the gears. The drums snap like the trap floor at a hanging. They are a band explicitly antithetical to the idea of Rap Genius. They've always been purposely obfuscating, but Cobra Juicy's lyrics are even more difficult to decipher than usual. It is pop as Rorschach blot. You hear what you want bubbling out of the murk. Yours ears absorb toxic effluvia about kissing gasoline and shattering glass. Devil's Night finally gets the soundtrack that D-12 could never deliver.
"Hairspray Heart" finds Tobacco wailing about "sucking all the poison from a snakebite" and "a fucking diamond falling from my fucking eyes" over freeway underpass-dirty drums and rainbow sherbet synths. "Psychic Love Damage" is swooning ballad that might be the closest BMSR come to romantic, but even then, the lover's smiles "wreck" him. "We Burn" channels folk singer era Beck, if he was abducted and forced to entertain Xenu and John Travolta.
Other than would-be mission statement, "I Think I'm Evil", "Gangs in the Garden" might be the song that best encapsulates the helter-skelter aesthetic. There is synth bass, a beat that could soundtrack a robbery at a roller rink, distorted guitars, and vocals that channel the voice of the snake in the Garden of Eden. All this would be schtick if not for Tobacco's ever-improving pop gifts. Wait for the bridge at 1:20 of "Blurring My Day" when the chaos relents for a few seconds like a confession metaphysically wiping away weeks of sin. If this is psychedelia, it's only in the sense that each song replicates the intensity of the trip: the suicidal lows and the love-is-everything highs.
This might be BMSR's most accessible effort, but if you couldn't get past the vocoder and voodoo before, it's unlikely that you will now. This is a cult, one large enough to raise over $100K to fund this record-- led by a man advocating cutting Kool-Aid with cyanide and always inviting new members.
