Helping You Help Yourself

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		It's You I Pity	3:01	Play
2		Manchester United	5:44	Play
3		Million Dollar Man	4:26	Play
4		Lootin' In The A.M.	5:07	Play
5		Stud 100	4:36	Play
6		I'll Be Your Daddy	4:11	Play
7		The Ballad of Sissyfist	4:31	Play
8		After The Orgy	3:36	Play

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Description

Taking off from forgotten forms of metal and strange twists on surf and punk rock, The Giraffes have forged a new sound that seeks to combine several disparate influences and accents into a style that is oblique, eclectic, care free and bombastic.



The Giraffes (Review in Jersey Beat)

Helping You Help Yourself

Demented, pornographic, electric and wide-awake, black and blue and red all over, this much-anticipated release captures a substantial portion of the intensity and excitement surrounding Brooklyn's furious Giraffes. Anybody who has ever seen guitarist Damien Paris perform will not be surprised by the intelligence and ambition informing the stratospheric solos recorded here -- few instrumentalists in the city have the capacity to draw connections between styles and approaches so instinctively. Supported by the muscular (and surprisingly propulsive for music so heavy) rhythm section of Andrew Totolos and Tim Kent, the charismatic Paris swings effortlessly from classic-metal shredding to hammer-ons to authentic Memphis soul licks to soaring and angular lyrical phrases reminiscent of Duane Allman at his most attention-grabbing -- and sometimes in the same twelve bars! Indeed, Helping You Help Yourself preserves most of the musical features that make Giraffes shows so riveting (and occasionally straight-up frightening): the surf-rock-meets-flamenco tension buildup on "Manchester United," the spacious, mounting waltz-time outro of "Looting in the A.M.," the unabridged guitar assault of "The ballad of Sissyfist," the elastic, apocalyptic chorus lead on "Million dollar man," the whiplash riffs of "I'll be your daddy." Thus, those Giraffes fans searching for a good representation of the group's undeniable musical excellence will find ample satisfaction here. And yet the most remarkable feature of this outstanding rock album comes from an unexpected source: lead singer Aaron Lazar, whose theatrical approach and alternately threatening and hilarious stage stance is always compelling in live performance, but whose voice can't always be heard over the combined might of the Paris-Totolos-Kent maelstrom. His voice mixed clearly and bravely foregrounded, Lazar proves himself a master of delivery and subtle inflection, all without ever sacrificing power -- he is a huge, dominating presence on this record, communicative, terrifying, funny, deeply sympathetic even when articulating lyrical content that is, er... unlikely to win Tipper Gore's approval, to say the least. Its a dark and twisted vision of New York City that he illustrates here, and he is unafraid to lead us down some sordid alleys. Tawdry sex, overt threats, homicide, football hooliganism, looting and pillaging, two-fisted braggadocio and cheap torment -- Lazar shines his flashlight on all of them. Even when he shouts, he does so tunefully, recalling Morrissey and Greg Dulli as often as Bon Scott, and his participation insures that Helping You Help Yourself is a thinking man's heavy album, a writer's delight as well as a guitar aficionado's wet dream. An absolute must for hard rock fans, and appreciators of the rougher side of the Brooklyn scene.

Tris McCall

Jersey Beat Magazine