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Chad Vangaalen: Skelliconnection Label: Sub Pop Released: 2006

I've been sitting on this record for a minute and I've been hearing murmurings about my boy Chad for some time. Like two or three years, it feels like. Although time flies when you're an alien. Yup, that's right. I'm an alien. Not like INS, no-green-card alien. More like Alf from Melmac alien. When's the last time you heard an Alf reference? Holy shit, do you even know who Alf is? Dude looked like a talking ball of hair, yet he ate cats. I wonder if that was some weird dig on people that eat cats? The ‘80s were a cruel and unusual time.

So yeah, I'm an alien. At least that's what I put on my résumé. I had to fill in something between the years of 1999 and 2003. I figured, why not spice it up a bit? Oddly enough, I'm still unemployed. Well, except for this gig. These guys totally bought the alien bit. Maybe they were just impressed with my creative writing skills. Maybe they were hard up for writers. Who knows? All I know is that I'm supposed to review this record.

So I'm getting a vibe of a modernized yet distinctly low-fi Oingo Boingo from Mr. Vangaalen. Or maybe it's more like circus music from the utter depths of hell. Maybe the latter is a better fit. Maybe it's just this record mixed with the inhumane amount of cold medicine that I'm currently trying to work my way through. Chad keeps chanting, "I'm never going to sleep" over and over again and that's exactly how I feel. Frigging Tylenol Sinus daytime. All I want to do is sleep and I've got this dude yelling about how he's never going to sleep while I try to sweat out/shake out this evil cold medicine. Oh boy. Here comes the banjo track. That really ties the room together.

Under any other set of circumstances, I may be able to enjoy this record, hence the two and a half stars. When I feel better, I'll take more cold medicine and report back. Actually, no I won't. I'll take the cold medicine but I won't tell you any more about this record. My brain hurts.