Pink & Brown

Final Foods

Pink plays guitar and sings through a telephone mouthpiece. Brown plays drums like a beast. Put them together and you have Pink and Brown, perhaps the most spastic costumed noise rock group this side of Lightning Bolt. Pink (John Dwyer ) and Brown (Jeff Rosenberg) are sometimes frenetic and chaotic, sometimes sludgy and catchy in their stylings, but never do they stray from their goal of being as nasty and abrasive as possible.

Cool noise, punk stuff. It's all over the place, and just so brash and noisy, and really addicting. With just a guitar and a drummer, the sound is really full. For fans of lightning bolt/melt banana/locust.

Shame Fantasy II

Shame Fantasy II compiles the group's entire catalogue of recorded material (in reverse chronological order) onto one 45-minute cd, which includes one full length (Final Foods, a split with Death Drug and five previously unreleased recordings. Newer tracks such as "Black Pearl" and "Sheriff Jessum" show a Melt Banana-esque catchy side to the band and older tracks such as "The Tunnel" and "Enter Officer, Exit Wound" show brief moments of calm interspersed with sections of complete cacophony, but the formula for each track is essentially the same. Whether Pink and Brown are playing fast, technical pieces or more catchy, groove-oriented tunes such as "Messy Bessy, Get Undressy" (a little more akin to Dwyer's own Coachwhips), the goal always seems to be to squeeze the most noise possible out of the band's instruments, all while having a huge amount of fun.

Shame Fantasy II is an entirely enjoyable compilation from a strikingly consistent group who were far too short-lived.