Fat White Family – Songs For Our Mothers

★☆

Released January 22nd, 2016 on Fat Possum Records

Fat White Family are a London band that likes to do two things:  first, get in your face and slay sacred cows in the name of being offensive (in order to get at the truth of things, of course); and second, hoover up every known drug in existence.  They’re sort of semi-legendary for both, even this early into their career.

Now neither of those things bothers me, per se.  I enjoy irreverence, and there aren’t many cows I consider sacred when it comes to music.  A similar band in this vein that I absolutely adore would be Future Of The Left.  The big difference between Fat White Family and Future Of The Left, however, is that FOTL isn’t the most utterly boring collection of tripe I’ve come across in months.

Songs For Our Mothers starts off promisingly enough.  “Whitest Boy On The Beach” is a fun, ramshackle kind of song that straddles the line of post-punk while urinating on it.  Unfortunately, everything that comes after moves along at a crawl, coming off as a collection of dirges by ruffians who are trying to shock you but end up just putting you to sleep instead.  I honestly fell asleep a couple of times listening to the album.  Not a good sign for a band that wants to get by on being provocative.

Ditch the opiates and try some crack next time, lads.  It’ll bring out your personality more.