MP3 REVIEW: EATENBYWOMBATS “A New Olaf” (Driftwood Records)

EATENBYWOMBATS “A New Olaf” (Driftwood Records)

                “A New Olaf” is a collection spanning sixty three tracks (no joke) of everything ever recorded by EATENBYWOMBATS from October 2010 to February 2012.   I know this because the album cover/linear notes say so. 

                Now you may think that you’re getting a lot of songs here, but many of the songs have several versions (live/demo/whatever) and so it’s really not that many different songs.  I suppose, as the person reviewing this, I should be the one to break it down and let you know, but I really don’t care enough to do that.    Here are some fun things for you to know about their songs, though:

1)      Many of their songs (especially the live versions) are of poor quality.  This really hinders songs you might want to actually hear, such as their cover of Blink 182’s “Dammit”.  It also makes a lot of the early tracks seemingly blend together in the clusterfuck of “play whatever you want as fast as you can while I scream like an idiot”.

2)      They have a song- and it’s actually the last track- with one of those pseudo clever names and it’s about Nirvana.  It actually goes to the tune of “Lithium”, but doesn’t share the same lyrics.  If I could understand the shitty recording quality I’d be able to tell you whether or not they were appreciative of what Kurt Cobain did or were mocking him in some way, but at this point it doesn’t really even matter.

3)      The only clever song they have is called “False Ending”, in which the song seemingly comes to an end, then they yell “False ending!” and keep the song going.  This goes on for way too long and, honestly, it’s ground that was first made famous by Lambchop via “The Song That Never Ends”, so while it has this Bouncing Souls “Shark Attack” hint to it, overall you can’t give these dudes too much credit.

                So is it worth downloading this buttload of songs from Band Camp for free?  I’m kind of regretting it, but if I didn’t listen to it I never would have known, so I have no regrets, though it’s not something I’ll ever likely play again.