Five albums into their career, Girls Against Boys finally take their major label bow. Other than the name of the record company, nothing much has changed in their neon-lit world. Here, as on 1996's "House of GVSB", Girls Against Boys report back from the dark underbelly of New York City. Freak*On*ICA is all twisted sex and cheap drugs: "My idea of fun is as out there as anyone", assures Scott McCloud in a nicotine-ravaged croak during Park Avenue's pulsating opening groove.
The sound too remains much the same: a relentless, driving grind filled out by layer upon layer of strange atonal noises and narrated by McCloud's hoarse whisper of a voice. Johnny Temple and Eli Janney's bass guitars are still the lead instruments: one thumping away at an ominously low pitch, the other droning above it. Mc Cloud's guitar scratches and scrapes across this surface, while synthesizers buzz and shriek in the background.
It is a fantastic noise, and as ever the sound GVSB make on Freak*On*ICA is as important as the individual songs themselves. Taken as a whole, this would be the perfect soundtrack to Harrison Ford's trip into the seedy rain-washed streets of post-millenium LA in "Blade Runner" - or better still, to some futuristic porno flick.
Which isn't to say that there aren't some staggering songs here. Like "Exorcisto", a nerve-jangling urban voodoo. Or "Roxy", which emerges from a blizzard of white noise into a grinding riff and on to a ghostly vocal hook. Or "Psycho Future", their most accessible black-hearted drone to date. In isolation, though, at least three of these tracks - "Black Hole", "Vogue Thing", "Push the Fader" - are little more than GVSB by numbers and as a band they're doing little now that they haven't already done on 1993's benchmark album "Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby" album.
Freak*On*ICA closes on a high with "Exile", a vibrant, feedback-drenched collage, and "Cowboy's Orbit", a typically seductive wide-screen splurge. There is absolutely no way it's going to make Girls Against Boys the mainstream darlings that Geffen would like, but as an exercise in sonic terrorism it remains state of the art.
Paul Rees