Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion
Posted by Guest Writer on Mon, 25 Jul 2011.
Towards the end of May a lot of albums were released and a lot of different albums were considered pretty average, pretty “put-downable” and pretty samey. I must say though, listening toFight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion- the sophomore album by Irish band, Fight Like Apes - as well as listening through the different lyrics, the unique tones and fantastic pitch of Mary-Kate Geraghty’s voice and the rest of the band, made this particular album something that could really not be ignored. No matter how much you’d might try to - you quite simply just had to listen and, if I’m honest, it was worthy of the time it was given!
One thing that Fight Like Apes and the lyrics that May Kay and the rest of the band put together can definitely not be called is “reserved”, “quiet” or “shallow”, with the album itself giving more than a blunt and frank insights into the lives, loves and losses of each of the band members - this itself is evident even in the first track on the album, with May Kay telling us that are listening to the brand new album to “talk about feelings”, and my goodness, do they? Oh yes!
The first couple of tracks on the album are quite simply fantastic. Each of the pieces begins with a short piece of dialogue from font woman, May Kay before the listener is hit with a variety of different sounds, tones and notes, telling the listeners exactly what is on her mind and at what time as the dialogue becomes more of a tune and into a song. “Come On, Lets Talk About Our Feelings” lists all the problems that come with keeping quiet about different situations and different problems, before screaming at the audience to unload all of their issues on somebody - quite literally telling each of us to “talk about our feelings” and forget about the different consequences of doing so, before the song itself reaches an ultimate crescendo.
The second single on the track list - “Jenny Kelly” - which was, also the first release for the single starts of slower than most Fight Like Apes singles that have previously been released, before the song begins gathering pace with the same rude and sharp points being listed to those people that would be listening and talking about this Jenny Kelly. Other singles onFight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Madellionthat really stick out and make me (and no doubt, countless numbers of people at home)are “Pull off Your Arms and Let Me Play with Your Arms”, which, as you can imagine is very aggressive and can be shown through the screaming, crescendos and increasing noise that hits your ears. Another song that also strikes you is “Hoo Har Henry” in which May Kay explains that she wishes her boyfriend was somebody else instead (“somebody like Jenny, Johnny, Bill or Todd”), before listing who she would prefer in a great amount of detail, before realising that all her friends “are dead” or “high on meds”. You know, as you do!
Whilst Fight Like Apes are incredibly rude, pretty lewd and so incredibly to the point it should also be noted that some form of “parental advisory” recommendations should be implemented to this album as the lyrics and the themes of the piece are very grown up and do include a lot of bad language that, I’m sure anchor the point of the songs to those that are listening. I mean, what else would you expect from the band where drinking gallons of red wine is both a before and after ritual before preforming live in front of a group of people?
Review by Bradley