Friday, May 9, 2025

One of The Residents’ Most Monumental Albums – Doctor Dark reviewed

Split into three acts, the latest new material from The Residents draws heavily upon two significantly troubling events of the late 20th Century – the trial by puppets of Judas Priest as they defended themselves against accusations of hiding subliminal messages within their songs which could drive the vulnerable to attempt suicide, and Jack Kevorkian, […]

God In Three Persons – The Residents Embrace The Compact Disc

The Cryptic Corporation’s tireless piecing together of studio crumbs shows no sign of slacking. ‘God in Three Persons’ represents a milestone for The Residents, a period when they were forced to adapt to outside forces impacting both the way they worked and how they were experienced by their audiences. We’re in 1988 and the CD has […]

Pop Music Of A Sort – The Residents’ Commercial Album

Music dullards will often, frothing at the mouth, offer well-meant but always hopeless tips as to how to tackle a band’s catalogue you are unfamiliar with. “DON’T listen to the one with all the hits, start with this bootleg of rare B-side performances first!” “It’s best you listen to them in this order – 3,1,4,2,8,7,5,6.. […]

The Birth Of The Eyeball – The Residents’ Eskimo

1979 – the year of the eyeball. It was with the release of the album, ‘Eskimo’, that The Residents donned their tuxes and top hats and unveiled their ocular visages. From shadows and collages emerged an immediately recognisable band, though there was still no further clarity as to whom lurked beneath. It wasn’t the only […]

I Am A Resident, You Are A Resident, We Are All Residents

In 1967, to extract himself from a contract he had with Bang Records, Van Morrison recorded 31 songs, reputedly improvised and all, certainly, examples of Van putting in zero effort, even by his standards. It worked, and Van was able to carry on with his career elsewhere, one of the most notorious examples of throwing […]

Meet The Third Reich ‘N’ Roll Of The Residents

When The Mothers of Invention released ‘Freak Out!’ in 1966, although it was groundbreaking in its vision and appropriately ignored by the record-buying public, it was very much an album that fitted its environment and reflected the gnarled and disgusting elements that the 1960s did a terrific job of airbrushing. In contrast, The Residents’ debut, 1974’s Meet […]

Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982

The Residents Present: Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982 This could be one of the most surprising retrospectives released this year. Not that it exists – maybe a few years ago, the notion of collecting some of the label’s releases would’ve been considered too niche, but Cherry Red’s ultra-deep Residents digging has put paid to […]