Thursday, February 02, 2006

Robot Assassins - Beneath the Planet of the Apes




Robot Assassins
Beneath the Planet of the Apes 7" (Total Sound, 1997)

This self-released Ep out of Oakland, CA, showcases a much-missed influence that started to overtly seep into the garage-level punk scene at the turn of the decade: minimalized art punk riffs. And not Cabaret Voltaire or This Heat or LAFMS or whatever, but the more skeletal guitar-riff-oriented bands that have been loosely lumped into the 'UK Diy' genre in the last ten or so years, yer Reflections or the varied Fuck Off label artistes. Certainly the Urinals influence immediately jumps out at you, especially on 'Smash', but it's just grin-inducing the way these cats slot it into their shotgun and hit 'play'. As it is, they come off like a more attitudinal A Frames, and indeed they just preceeded that band's rise to global domination.

This was their only official (and half-heartedly distributed) release, although at least an LP's worth of demos that are as excellent as these samplings is floating 'bout. -Ryan W


Comments:
Great post! Do either of you guys still see this single pop up in the used bins? I'd love to get my hands on one.

-jeff g
 
Great, great post. Glad to see this truly overlooked (and underrated) band get a little attention.

Those demos are good too. At one point they were trying to talk me into doing a 2xLP with them. I don't know if those songs would hold up over that much space, but as you said, there is easily an LPs-worth of material there.
 
Just to throw my hat in here, I highly endorse this single as well (thanks Dave Hyde), and yes, the never-issued full-length would have made a great release.
 
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