Reviews

FIRKENSTEIN Use Your Ears and Hear Me

If there’s a dictatorial takeover of the Murfreesboro local music scene, it was started by experimental funk-electronica multi-instrumentalist and beatmaker Andy Campbell-Firkus (making music under the moniker Firkenstein) with his self-released, full-length beat mix Use Your Ears and Hear Me, an instrumental collection that not only struts the artist’s tonal ability to facilitate such an epic power grab, but also the audacity to provide the musical score.

Firkenstein came to life in 2019, when Campbell-Firkus debuted a harnessed and bashful early attempt at the mix board with Cornelius-like playfulness in mixing his digital and analog synth, guitar and drum instrumentation and arpeggiatorfueled MIDI experimentation.

Firkenstein remained highly electrifi ed over the following two years, releasing brazenly ambitious works that established a gritty determination resembling the rule of uber-producer Rick Rubin, displaying a versatility suggestive of a Nine Inch Nails-meets-Devo match.

Use Your Ears and Hear Me dropped in November 2021, somehow instrumentally symbolizing the charismatic gestures of an orator’s hands, with the determined pointer fi nger of arena-worthy lead guitar chops and synth riffs on one hand and the pounding fi st of a low, grungedistorted fuzz bass from the other.

Opening with a prime example encapsulating the metaphorical gesturing of said orator, “Skimmin’ & Skammin’” builds to a crescendo in the vein of Clutch, or perhaps Audioslave’s “Cochise,” bangin’ dictatorial hands on the podium with an impressively composed and captivating introduction.

Once the listeners are entranced, Firkenstein moves on current issues, easing back the tempo to depict relaxing, accepting views of societal vice in “Drunk in the Tub” as well as the dangers of fossil fuels in the foreboding “More Oiled Than a Diesel Train,” decked with phased ’80s synth and overdriven bass.

“The Void Is Always Waiting” continues the dirty, synth-accented bass-pounding, while layered guitar solos effectively seize the spotlight on the Arcade Fireesque “Death Is Not the Greatest Loss” and “No Man Needs Nothing,” the latter blazing in the stratosphere atop a low, bluesy picked guitar.

Firkenstein adopts the guitar stance of Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner on “Forcing Thoughts Into Other People’s Brains” but quickly snaps out of such sonic malevolence, doubling down on his Devo infl uence to create a poppier, more crowd-pleasing message before leaving on a high note to the macho-bassed “Hunting at Night.”

Use Your Ears and Hear Me sounds and feels like a historical speech, able to convince the masses and sway us all, yet never once does Firkenstein use his voice as his call to action.

That’s a solid beat album.

Find Firkenstein’s Use Your Ears and Hear Me, and his entire body of work, at fi rkenstein.bandcamp.com.

— BRYCE HARMON

DIRECTORS David Blue Garcia STARRING Sarah Yarkin, Elsie

RATED R

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was Tobe Hooper’s fi lthy, no-frills, low-budget horror phenomenon that saw some hippie vagrants run afoul of some truly deranged rednecks. Whether about the atrocities of Vietnam or the violence inherent in meat production (Hooper said he had to give up meat during shooting), the fi lm never explicitly tells you what it’s about beyond abject terror.

Welcome to 2022 then: the year that forgot about subtlety, subtext and subtitles. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is not “the” Texas chainsaw massacre, but “a” Texas chainsaw massacre, though it would’ve been more appropriately titled Not Another Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In case it was unclear, this fi lm is about a guy in Texas who has a chainsaw and goes on a massacre.

To say it is about anything else would be buying into the surface-level Twitterisms and political talking points that make up the entirety of the fi rst act of the script. The fi lm follows four young “infl uencers” who have purchased an abandoned Texas town (like you do), and within the fi rst 10 minutes the movie brings up gentrifi cation, open-carry, school shootings and the Confederate fl ag. This current-topics-bingo-card version of a script is window dressing taken seriously. But the real plot is equally ridiculous: these young “gentri-f*ckers” (an actual word in the script) accidentally kill Leatherface’s mom and that makes him sad so he goes on a rampage.

Whereas Hooper’s fi lm, and even the oft-overlooked batshit sequel from ’94 subtitled The Next Generation (starring Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger no less), were both relatively bloodless, this fi lm is one of the goriest I’ve seen since the Evil Dead remake, whose director Fede Alvarez gets a story-by and producer credit. Despite the copious splatter and an overkill soundtrack of constant metal-on-metal grating sounds, the opening-to-credits runtime of 73 minutes still drags.

Director David Blue Garcia comes from a cinematography background, and it shows in the quality and composition of some of the shots. However, the fi lm still suffers from that “Netfl ix neon” lighting that seems inescapable right now, and instantly dated.

As well as the previously mentioned technical missteps in script and sound, this fi lm follows the regrettable trend of slasher franchises past their prime and pulls the legacy card. According to this movie, none of the other sequels happened, Leatherface is pushing 70(!) and has been dormant while the lone survivor of the fi rst fi lm, Sally, has been hunting him for 50 years. What does it think it is, a Halloween? Nope, it’s yet another Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

— JAY SPIGHT