"Long Live Père Ubu!"

iTunes Review

Long Live Pere Ubu is the studio recording of their version of the Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) play Bring Me the Head of Ubu Roi that has inspired the band ever since their inception in the mid-1970s. Just as Jarry was an unconventional writer, Pere Ubu have been an unconventional band. Their sonic attack is anything but standard, filled with technological bloops and blips, spoken chatter, and lead vocals from David Thomas that range from strange to weird hysteria. This collection is augmented by six additional collaborators who further confuse the Ubu assault. No one is likely to follow whatever plotline might exist with this infuriating play that upon its initial unveiling by Jarry sparked riots in a Paris theater in 1896. Instead, one settles back and catches the odd moments, the song and dance of “Song of the Grocery Police,” the disturbed tension behind “Banquet of the Butchers” and the tone poem that emerges in “Less Said the Better.” Pere Ubu have rarely been for the faint of heart. Here, they indulge their weirdness with every stretched keyboard line and haunted voice.