In this world there exist precious few bands, past or present, that are as fearlessly experimental as Unrest-- and even fewer who would dare issue so many experiments on one album. Can you imagine if Jim O'Rourke released a record that contained his early tape-manipulation work, avant-garde guitar strangling, minimalist orchestral pieces, and a few songs from his current Bacharach-worship period? It'd be pretty fucked up, and maybe even mind-blowing, but definitely not very listenable. Which sums up Kustom Karnal Blackxploitation excellently.
Really now, how are we supposed to feel about an album with a title like that? And what are we supposed to think of song titles like "Black Power Dynamo" and "Kill Whitey"? How about a 10+ minute-long spoken-word piece about Sammy Davis, Jr.'s car accident? Tuneless grunge-metal scowling like on "Invoking the Godhead" and "Click Click"? A jokey wah-funk song called "The Foxey Playground" where every time Mark Robinson sneers "She's Foxey!" it recalls the Beastie Boys' "She's Crafty"? All on the same album?!
Overall, the best thing about Kustom Karnal Blackxploitation is that Unrest had sharpened their focus a bit since their previous album, the seven-layer-dip Malcolm X Park (both of which, incidentally, were first released by Caroline in 1988 and 1990 and are now being reissued through No. 6 and Teenbeat). More so than Malcolm X Park, Kustom Karnal reads like a catalog of Mark Robinson's various obsessions, from Kenneth Anger to blaxploitation films to Butch Willis, a little-known Beefheartian drug casualty that haunted the D.C. music scene in the mid-to-late 80's. While such name-checking and full-throttle irony was acceptable-- even cool-- back when this album first came out, these days it's a little bit harder to handle.
If nothing else, Unrest earned its rightful place in the indie rock canon by being smart enough to take the five-second snippet of the song "Teenage Suicide" from the movie "Heathers" and complete it, turning it into a spot-on expression of confused adolescent melodrama. And then there's "Chick Chelsea Delux" and "She Makes Me Shake Like a Soul Machine," two soft, pretty songs which point in the direction Unrest would take their next album, Imperial f.f.r.r.. But these three tracks aren't quite enough to recommend Kustom Karnal, since the quality of the other songs depends entirely on your willingness to forgive Unrest their stylistic excesses.
