MP3 REVIEW: The Illegal Wiretaps “美しい娼婔

The Illegal Wiretaps “美しい娼婔

                Before engaging in my full on review of the musical side of this album, I feel that I need to make two points.    The first point being simply that The Illegal Wiretaps have apparently released so much music (How much music have they released?) The Illegal Wiretaps have released so much music that their album titles can no longer be composed of actual words.   Yes, I sense in the future we will get an album titled such as “Glop Glop Gloop Gloop 68” if someone doesn’t read this and steal it first.   But not only is that album title not actual words, it’s not even a random series of letters—it’s non-lettered characters.   It probably means something but unless it’s 58008 upside down on a calculator I’m too lazy to decipher the code.   (Haha, it’s a secret I can’t decode, get it?   Yeah, I should probably cut this line out of here)

                My second point in relation to this album, which I will just call “this album” for lack of wanting to copy and paste the title repeatedly, is that 100% of the time when I review music by The Illegal Wiretaps (not by everyone mind you, but specifically by them) I listen to the album more than once before writing a review.   This may come as a surprise, but even with my Song-By-Song Reviews, which I tend to ad lib for most bands; I listen to the music through at least once before reviewing it.    Oddly enough, I have a virtual stack of music by The Illegal Wiretaps that I’ve listened to on seeming repeat but still cannot come up with the proper words to do the releases justice yet.   That coupled with the fact that The Illegal Wiretaps themselves are releasing music faster than I can review it makes for my second point to be rather strange.  (Side Bar: If I spent all of my time only reviewing Illegal Wiretaps music, I still doubt I’d catch up)   My second point, getting back to my point, is simply that before writing this review that I am typing as I speak it in my head and you are hopefully reading eventually, I have only listened to this album once.   Is that a good thing or a bad thing?   I’m not entirely sure, but I’d like to say it’s an indication that the more I listen to The Illegal Wiretaps the more I can sort of understand them and it’s making it easier for me to translate this music into a review for you, but alas, that simply is not the case.

                Wow, what am I reviewing again?

                Yes, so this is an instrumental (sort of) electronic type of album from The Illegal Wiretaps.   One day when I’m not so busy I’d love to sit down and track all of The Illegal Wiretaps releases chronologically and then decide at what point certain events occurred, but for now you must just deal with my random, non-linear reviews where I write and post my thoughts on each album much like a child would bob for apples at a Halloween party.

                This album brings out the female computer generated voice that I’ve heard before because, well, I’ve listened to everything that The Illegal Wiretaps have posted on Band Camp I just haven’t written about all of them yet.    One day when I delve in deeper and become an even bigger Wiretaps geek, I will be able to say things like “These female vocals made their debut on such and such an album”, though I kind of feel creepy knowing that and it’s something I’d rather just ask the band in an interview to kind of write a biography on them or something.

                Has any of this review so far been about the music?   You can write a run on sentence and you can walk on to a movie, but can you write a walk on sentence?

                If you asked me right now what my favorite release by The Illegal Wiretaps is, I wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer nor would I give the cop out answer of “Oh, I love them all”, even though I do like them all.  The Illegal Wiretaps have two styles of music, the literal bipolar band if you will.   One style is rusty and acoustic or electric sounding rock with vocals and the other is primarily programmed electronic type of music.    This is the electronic type of music, of which I hadn’t yet found my favorite release, but for the typical band sound with vocals and all, I would highly recommend the first thing you hear by The Illegal Wiretaps to be “Near Dark”.    That’s one of my favorites and I think their best though, surprise surprise, I have not yet written the review for it.    This, which is the album with all the symbols for a title, I can now say is my favorite electronic album from the band or at least one that best displays their skills on that level.    The only problem the band leaves me with there is that this isn’t exactly an album title that rolls off the tongue as easily as “Near Dark” if you get me. 

                So this album opens up with these big beats and just synth bass that are all sorts of bad ass.   I’m thinking this is like Nine Inch Nails or The Prodigy or something along those lines before the programmed vocals come in to remind me that, yes, this is an Illegal Wiretaps album.    

                The third song borders on 8bit and has the most excellent title of “Akira Needs to Be on Netflix Streaming, Yo”, which also entitles the song to have the male programmed voice say “Akira” repeatedly.   After that song though, we venture back into the familiar for a little bit.   Track 4 has the spastic drum machine sound I am used to from The Illegal Wiretaps and then it just kind of goes back and forth from there between the classic electronic sound this band is known for and this somewhat newer more bass heavy sound that just makes me feel all sorts of high energy like I can kick through brick walls.