In some ways this is less like an album and more like wandering around a raging party and listening in on a bunch of weird conversations from some strange people. You've probably been at a party like this. There are people who obviously have consumed too many substances and they are emphatic about something, but the meaning is never adequately conveyed through the intoxicated haze.

This album is like one of those parties, with some music wrapped around it. The vocalist has a slightly Southern accent that seems to get worse as he gets more drunk, and as someone who lives in the South, that really brings this all home. It reminds of standing around the fire pit at 10 PM at night when it is 85 F because it's summer, and people who have been drinking in the heat for hours are having loud conversations, and things get weird.

Just nod and smile. "Yeah, dude, sure."

Gox Chile starts with noise, just guitar squeal and drumming all over the place. Then a voice comes in like Gibby Haines on a bender, slurring words and playing with echo. Surreal.

The next song is a little more focused. Lil' Bug has a rumbling bass riff and guitar tingling away with vocals a drawl of dissatisfaction. Behind all of this, there is a laugh track that ebbs and flows. The song moves nervously as the voice grows angry and berserk. The whole song accelerates until the voice is a high-pitched bewildered and angry screeching that reminds me of Dave Thomas and the guitar, bass, and drums pound along furiously.

"There's cancer in the rain, and the erf's on fire" the vocalist rants. Then the music starts up with crowd noise and he slurs his way through a bar crowd at Bowser's Behind him the guitar squeals and the drums grow crazy as he gets angrier. At the end his is yelling "Do you know how hard it is to think while you're in pain?"

The band manage to sound kind of like The Cramps on Karaoke, which has a sort of demented rockabilly beat to it.

The next song starts with a slow guitar riff. It is called Marvin - 267-348-5##6 and features the voice repeating "Somebody call Marvin / Get his fat ass on the phone / Tell him to get in his truck / Bring me some blow." Sir, might I suggest that more cocaine is not what you need at the moment. But this is a pretty fun tune, the music flowing somewhat normally behind the depraved lyrics.

Imagine A River is just a fever dream of noise and delirious ranting. I suppose that, in a way, it is the purest distillation of what these guys are up to. If flows seamlessly into PAUSE! . Here the vocalist is telling his friend to chill out. Then, suddenly he's angry: "I'll fucking kill you dude" and "I'm not gay!" Um, yeah. Sure dude.

It's raining in Help The Homeless and the vocals are unfocused and echoed as the band pounds away. On Doom Scroll the vocalist says "Why would I want to have a thought when all of them are negative". Damn, yeah I get you. This song is much like the earlier Lil' Bug, with a driving bass riff, ranting voice, and angry guitar squeals. For some reason, this one kind of reminds me of the Dead Kennedys, but it is more of a tone thing than any specific sonic element. These guys certainly carry that spirit of mocking everything.

Finally the record ends with American Dream, the band making noise behind two contrasting samples, one of Jimmy Carter speaking and a slowed down news reading of the slaughter in Palestine. Dark.

My Wife's An Angel are from Philadelphia, but really these guys would fit right in at The Star Bar, or Dottie's back in the day. If records could come with smells, this has the smell of stale beer and long lingering cigarette smoke.

So, yeah, this record is dark. Noisy. Scary. This is weird angry music for people who have just given up and decided they might as well have a beer now, at 10 am, because FUCK IT.

My Wife's An Angel take the misanthropy of Pere Ubu, the sheer unrestrained weirdness of McCluskey and Butthole Surfers, the anger of Dead Kennedys, and just increases it to a fury where the only response is to get wasted and try not to think.

It's a hell of an accomplishment, really. But I get that a lot of people will be turned off.

Probably safer that way.