From the 150-second ‘Fyre Balls’ (lmao) to the 9-minute-long ‘Satanas’ (lmfao) every track on ‘Ball’ is built on one or two lumpen riffs that are performed without charm, guile or wit. Or sex for that matter, beyond a sort of grizzled-pintman-at-the-bar lechery. They are repeated ad nauseam, with zero dynamic variation, and one of three things happens: Mr. Ball chats about “riding through the night” or “fire” or some other bollocks; the band mess about with ‘weird’ sounds, which the average Meatloaf fan would find passé; or someone plays a battle-of-the-bands-ass guitar solo that lasts f o r e v e r.
The six tracks here are essentially not music for 2017, but rather dated semiotics of music – specifically of the very heteronormative, very conservative, very masculine rockist canon. I’m sure Ball are having fun, but this is the aural equivalent of a flaming skull on a t-shirt. The press release promised me “a nightmare of revolting sounds”, but revulsion would require some degree of sonic exploration or a desire to challenge the listener.
