Crying Nut - 서커스 매직 유랑단
Rating: 6.6
Label: Drug Records
Release Date: November 1, 1999
Relevant Links: Buy it here.
There’s no doubt about it, this is a punk album. It has “Woah Woah Woah” choruses, dudes yelling “Oi!” and 2 minute, three chord blowout. But to say this album is only a punk album would be dishonest.
Over the course of this album, it becomes abundantly obvious that Crying Nut is a band who’s members have multiple personalities. They are constantly jumping from genre to genre, like a sex craze monkey jumps from tree to tree looking for new things to fuck. Like said monkey, Crying Nut don’t stick with one genre for too long.
The first track, “서커스 매직 유랑단,” sounds like a punk rock take on Russian folk music (complete with accordians folks), while “강변에 서다” sounds like some sort of ska-metal hybrid.
The amusing/awesome/frustrating thing about this blending of styles is the fact that you will get an old school spirit of ‘76 punk song followed by a smooth jazz number featuring a xylophone. This is an album that keeps you on your toes. Even in their punk tracks, Crying Nut mix it up on you. “배짱이” features (in addition to “Woah! Woah!” choruses) some fuckin’ flamenco guitar work, and “군바리” has trumpets (which aside from doing typical ska trumpet stuff) rock some military style battle calls.
There are moments when all this mixing of genres falls flat. “탈출기 (바람의 계곡을 넘어…)” sounds like a walk through Sibera, complete with some wind sound FX. The song is slow and plodding and pretty much kills the energy the album had going on. This track aside, there are a couple other tracks that are a tad too long (especially for the short attention span of most punk rock fans).
These small things aside, the album is fairly solid. Crying Nut avoid the problems a lot of other artists who the the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to writing. While others comes across as either too cluttered sounding, or listless, Crying Nut are able to experiment with different styles and instrumentation will maintaining a distinct sounds, and more importantly remaining listenable.
