The Residents

It was with this album that the Residents perfected, for one brief moment, the dark, mysterious twisted pop song that raised their profile in the experimental music scene and college radio world. The songs contained here (a combination of two EPs of earlier that year, Duck Stab and Buster and Glen) are short, the lyrics obscure but precise, the analog synth sounds masterful. Like Brian Eno, the Residents' lyrics were more about the sound of the words than the meaning, and what is here on Duck Stab is in the tradition of such absurdists as Odgen Nash or Lewis Carroll ("An oily old egg with a red peg leg/Thought a porcupine was his daughter" goes the hillbilly singer on "The Laughing Song"). The music varies from romantic (swirling, muddy synths on "Blue Rosebuds") and lyrical ("Semolina") to frightening and ambiguous ("Hello Skinny," one of the group's best songs), while stopping to twist the surf genre ("Weight Lifting Lulu," which sounds like the Ventures under heavy flu medication) and R&B ("The Booker Tease" -- get it?). The group could have followed in this vein rather successfully, that they didn't for much longer is testiment to their dogged devotion to experimentation at all costs. Released on CD with four (rather pointless) adaptations of nursery rhymes called "Goosebump," originally the b-side of Diskomo. The re-release removes them. ~ Ted Mills, All Music Guide