FIREWATER
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

This album is intricately layered with delights, a complete production. Psychopharmacology follows a different course from Firewater’s last album, the indie-hit The Ponzi Scheme. Where The Ponzi Scheme at its best was propelled by the bass of Tod A. and drums of Yuval Gabay (Soul Coughing) towards cacophonous bar songs and churning rock-and-roll show-stoppers like "Dropping Like Flies," Psychopharmacology is a more clinically sedated continuation of The Ponzi Scheme’s contemplatitive songs "Caroline" and "I Still Love You Judas."

Here then we have a full range of prescriptive songcraft for the introspective listener. And for those who enjoy a more escapist, drug-induced reality, I can assure you that Psychopharmacology delivers some great highs. The title song, for one, is pleasantly rollicking and songs like "Woke Up Down, ""Get Out of My Head," and "The Man With the Blurry Face" swing and bop along beautifully like mid-60’s era pop songs. Imagine the Chiffons’ "One Fine Day" with the lyrics of "Get Out Of My Head," "Baby, I could be a billionaire/If I wasn’t always broke/And I could be a comedienne/If I wasn’t such a joke/I guess I knew it all along/Being born is where I went wrong."

The lyrics are buoyed, however, by the pop and fizz of drummer Tamir Muskat’s sizzling snare and his percussive prowess with finger bells, shakers and other instruments evocative of a Middle Eastern (Israeli) upbringing. The sixties alt-pop sound is further defined through a melotron and frequent usage of an electric organ played in minor chords. But it is Muskat’s sharp sparseness that perfectly complements the album’s unquestionable strength: maestro Tod A. addictive, compelling, raspy-voiced vocals.

Long-time New Yorker Tod A. sounds like a balladeer from the Lower East Side when drugs and death ruled the neighborhood. He is full of horror stories, told with style and substance, thick with experience. But there is always a calming, slyly humorous effect in his gravelly delivery, as if these coarse tales of suicide, deathly deceit and murder are but a part of the fabric of life and life is, well, if not necessarily good, then at least bearable. "I’ll take what the dumpsters are giving/And I’ll pray every night to St. Giles/ But I still think that life’s for the living/At least for a while."

All of founder Tod A.’s songs on Psychopharmacology carry this sort of devilishly delightful imagery; haunting, melodramatic and yet comical. There’s a malicious insurance scam artist with a penchant for twisted metal in "Car Crash Colloborator" who speaks with a matter-of-factness belying his grisly occupation, "As you crawl from the debris/Remember that it’s just the way I feed my family…/ I’m just a cold cash negotiator/And I’m sipping on an oxygen cocktail/With an ambulance chaser." Perhaps the best song is "Black Box Recording," an eyewitness account of a mid-air airplane explosion told in sickly-sweet sincerity, "The ‘No-Smoking’ sign is flashing/Your mask decends without a sound/Your stab at hope receding/Even the sky is bleeding/You sure could use a smoke right now."

The craft of this album ranks up with best of its type, similar in lyrical design and content, but not sound, to Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads and Tom Waits’ Bone Machine. Like most good albums, the first few listens won’t reveal the album’s breadth. It sounds like a somewhat heavy-handed solo effort, with some occasional zip. On further listenings, you will become hooked.

Psychopharmacology is a crisp and expanding alt-pop record. The pain of the lyrics comes through cleanly, directly, without syrupy irony. I had a chance to talk to Tod A. about some of the songs on the album. At least two of them, including the title, refer to a friend of his who committed suicide. Still affected, Tod called it "a learning experience." While not so knee-jerk and one-sided as to blame the death solely on anti-depressant pills, he clearly expresses a disdain for, yes, the proper term is psychopharmacology.

The album will carry you along, its skill is such that it is almost impossible to figure out that "Get Out of My Head" is really sung from the viewpoint of another character. Tod also told me that the peculiar tune "Black Box Recording" resulted from a real-life incident on a plane when he had been given "happy drugs" by a friend before take-off and an hour later, while pleasantly sedated and half-asleep, the plane hit some rough, unexpected turbulence. Several passengers were thrown violently and injured. But there was no one but himself that was "floating through the ceiling."

This is a very good album. Maybe you should buy it. Just maybe.

Tony Leonardo
June 21, 20001

Jetset Records http://jetset.sinner.com/
Firewater: www.fireH2o.com