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Review: 'CHINASKI'
'MEGATON ROBOTIC APPLE PIE'   

-  Label: 'SELF RELEASED'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '2005'

Our Rating:
Henry CHINASKI was the semi-autobiographical literary character Charles Bukowski created for four of his novels, an alcohol fuelled anti-heroic bohemian bum who also made appearances in a number of the writer’s short stories and poems. The 1987 film ‘Barfly’ is probably the best known interpretation of the character with Mickey Rourke giving his last great lead performance in the central role.

Now we have CHINASKI the band or to be more precise the self proclaimed “indie/emo rock” band. The quartet is LA based and comprises of Bruce Lomet (voice/guitar), Dan Cudahy (guitar), Colin McCoy (Bass) and Dave Weinstein (Drums). As befits their genre de choix CHINASKI absolutely love staccato sequences of minor chords, crunching them out on their guitars like an elephant stomping over countless packets of Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Opener ‘Frontline’ sets the template for the album with said guitar work, punctuated and restless drumming, incessant tempo changes and CNN meets MTV meets PS2 informed lyrics that propound ‘Gaza to the West, Ramallah to the East….Running through the mine field, RPG in hand / Aiming for the indolent pretender also-ran / Bent girders on the ground, sheepherders on the sky / Welcome to the homeland, now secure yourself to die.”

Gulp.

As menacing as all this may seem on paper, CHINASKI will be doing themselves an enormous disservice by claiming too close an association with the preponderately selfish, sulky and desultory world of emo. While the majority of the lyrics seek out the negatives, musically they offer a surprisingly high ratio of positive melodies within their musical Molotov cocktail that is far more West Coast and blue skies for the emo badge to sit comfortably.

In fact they’re not particularly heavy in a metal kind of way, serving up that kind of bright rock sound that is more akin to the Chilli Peppers and Janes Addiction as opposed to the subterranean riff-mongering of the likes of Sabbath who they cite as an influence. ‘Highway 61’, one of the album’s stand out tracks, the acoustic ‘One More Lie’ and the album’s final brace of ‘There Is A Place’ and ‘Weight Of The World’ extend this refined sound to include the mature rockisms of Bob Mould - with whose voice Bruce Lomet’s vocals has distinct parallels - both the solo artist and in his work with Sugar.

Across these ten tracks they demonstrate a knack of finding, almost as if by accident, something ear-catching at some point in their songs, but at present struggle to sustain the interest across a whole track, let alone a complete album. Or to put it another way despite these criticisms and the average score there is something in CHINASKI’s sound that could take listeners somewhere interesting if they could only take it upon themselves to ditch the restrictiveness of genre, sacrifice some of the fiddly arrangements in favour of incorporating a more direct approach and concentrate their efforts on maintaining the strong melody lines they often stumble across in any given song.

Then they may find themselves in charge of quite an exciting musical set-up with which to thrill us all.
  author: Different Drum

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CHINASKI - MEGATON ROBOTIC APPLE PIE