REVIEW: FATAL FLYING GUILLOTEENS - QUANTUM FUCKING

It’s a big oaken relief to listen to a Fatal Flying Guilloteens record. Seriously, you’ll have all your teeth afterwards. And leave that foundation in the makeup bag ladies – no black eye for you tonight. Yes, the recorded shrieks and stabs are a nice easy breezy listening experience compared to their live shows, which often seem about as safe as riding shotgun in a soft-side jeep wrangler in the rain with your drunk, one-eyed thirteen year old cousin behind the wheel. It’s probably the biggest cliché in rock to say that “this band’s live performance is teetering on the brink of spinning out of control!!!” But imagine if while you were saying that, the guy who founded Hallmark Greetings rolled up and exclaimed “you’re a soft boring lightweight of a pansy” and then swallowed you whole and pissed you out into a swimming pool of fresh jalapeños with a slide made of Ebola. Real talk: it would still be the same cliché, but atleast you’d have a better idea of what it means when something is totally Guilloteens-on-the-stage nuts.

Scuffles with each other, fisticuffs with bands they are on tour with, flaming motorcoaches – our five favorite boys are a long ways away from the once cowboy outfit bedecked Humble trio in sound, swagger and stature alike. It’s not particularly common for Bayou City rollers to keep it strong in the couples skate category for so long, but somehow (seriously – against the odds), the Guilloteens have done just that. And the next time you see one of them, pull them aside and dole out a total gripper of a hug for us – cause Quantum Fucking is butterdish of bliss, and we’re totally rolling our collective corncob in it. Fuck yes with the paprika dusting too – this shit rules.

More than Get Knifed, New Hustle or even their recent split with This Moment in Black History, QF is the Guilloteens coming into their own. We can’t even listen to those records anymore. We’re throwing them away – noble efforts but weaksauce in comparison. They’re nowhere near as puffy taco filling, bedsheet ripping or keno machine addicting. SBT nostalgia. The upgrade in the musicianship, songwriting and engineering of QF over the past is a breakthrough on the magnitude of scar-free tit jobs.

Still ripping it up with zip-code traitor and Erik Bogle-replaced Brian McManus for this recording, QF storms into your living room with ‘Hello Boss!!!,’ (a gift to you on this Bosses’ Day, perhaps) and right away lets you know that you are listening to a record that, while still carrying forward the mustardy flag of their previous works, has more craftsmanship to it. Yes, there are still those creaking hinge guitar leads whose notes refuse to come in sets of four, and they sound just as barely in-tune as ever – but they’re sharper. When Roy Mata’s bass switches from trampoline spring to low end - it’s lower.
Hearing Shawn Adolph and Mike, who usually trade vocal duties, actually share them (even if just for a moment) is one of those dirt simple/flying-car smart ideas that makes us totally stoked for the future. And damn John Adams, are those your hands clapping? We’d like to hold them. Totally Brohomo.

QF kicks you to the curb with the longest and slowest Guillojam to date, the semi-epic Legion of Serpents - a payoff the size of a negative pregnancy test with a riff worthy of God’s Temple of Family Deliverance. It’s a reminder that, when things get older they don’t necessarily mellow out – they get refined, and this is the oak barrel at it’s best. Recommended.

MP3: Fatal Flying Guilloteens - Reveal the Rats