Record Reviews

The Frogs

Bananimals (4 Alarm)

A little Frogs goes a long way -- toward clearing out a party, pissing off your neighbors, generally wiping clean any trace of a sunny disposition you may have once had -- and that's exactly the way brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemming like it. Despite a tendency toward mostly quiet, peaceful-sounding tunes that are deceptively reminiscent of Donovan or others of his ilk, it doesn't take too close a listen to the band's acoustic guitar or piano-driven numbers like "Love Me or Die Bitch" and "U Bastards" to realize this is a band that reveres confrontation and will stop at nothing to get your full attention. Breaking every taboo in the book is their goal, as demonstrated by their first breakthrough album, It's Only Right and Natural, a collection of homophilic songs that enraged both anti- and pro-gay forces. Subsequent albums have had less focus and thus less impact, Bananimals, for instance, mixing more gay-themed ditties ("Sailors Board Me Now") with another of the band's now-traditional genres: disturbing, improvisational songs with long unwieldy titles ("Dead Pussy in the Road w/Mother's Name on Top," "Blonde & Beautiful, Beat Up (& the Bitch Was Young)." There's not much to differentiate Bananimals from previous efforts like My Daughter the Broad, though it's still impossible to put on and ignore. It'll have to do until the brothers manage to get their controversial unreleased Racially Yours disc into stores later this year. (Friday, Beerland@Gallery Lombardi, 1am)