God Save The Queens
Masquerade Records, 1995
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impotent_Sea_Snakes
REVIEW BY: Paul Hanson
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 12/11/1998
I've had this tape in my collection for a few years and only recently pulled it out again. It had two inches of dust. I couldn't remember why.
Then I heard the music and it all came back to me. I remembered why I had Scotch taped this tape shut! I should have used gray tape, though.
The Impotent Sea Snakes are five transvestites that play average punk, peppered with profanities and absurd imagery. If you could strip away all the odd images the Sea Snakes want you to think about, God Save The Queens might actually be a decent disc. The deliberate sexual overtones don't really allow the band a chance to display their musical talent because you're listening to the lyrics, reacting in shock. To get a better idea of what the Sea Snakes are about, I could just list the song titles and let your imagination do the rest.
The disc starts with "Chicks With Dicks," followed by "Porn Star" where lead singer 13 boasts, "Be a red light district star/ 42nd street celeb/ Recognized in sleaze bars." Of the 12 tracks, only 3 don't contain vulgarities. The band notes that fact in the liner notes: "Note to Nutless DJ's: Cuts 3, 5 & 12 contain no profanity." The Sea Snakes are about being offensive, getting a reaction and leaving the listener speechless. Why else would a song be written about fucking kangaroos in "Kangaroos (Up The Butt)"? Or about going to a "lesbo orgy dressed in drag" in "Daisy Chain?"
Musically, there's not much to the band. Their cover of the Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil" invokes a laugh when 13 croons, "I'm a man of wealth and taste." Since this is the last track on the disc, hearing 13 describe himself as having taste invokes at least one very haughty laugh. "I Hate U" sounds okay, and "Kangaroos (Up The Butt)" has a Chilli Peppers by way of Aerosmith bass groove, but the rest of the music just doesn't do much for the listener. Besides, in reality, the lyrics overtake whatever amount of attention is you normally direct toward music.
The Impotent Sea Snakes are not a bad band because they talk about "fistfucking the cunt of the slut who once bore me in her womb" in "Fistfucking My Mother" or because they sing about "bon[ing] your buddy in the butt/ and suck[ing] the cum from his ass" in "Felching."
No, the Sea Snakes suck because their music is not able to overcome all the hype and stand on its own.