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Album Details

• Artist: Alex Ward
• Album: Hapless Days
• Label: Copepod
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2006-05-15

This is the sound of the Big Band that must be playing nightly in hell. Think of Tom Waits fronting Ministry, and you have Alex Ward. Equal parts sinister Vaudeville and Industrial whimsy, this is what Marilyn Manson would sound like if he was at all interested in being original and not a cartoon threat.
"All you need to know/is how to turn your shit into gold," Ward sings in "Block", and truer words about the intent of this record are hard to find. Warping on convention is evident of "Sounds like Someone We Know" is The Kinks gone atheist; "Persona non Grata" is Devo returned from the grave, worms still attached. Not the easiest listen, but one of the most rewarding I've heard in a long time. As he sings at one point, this record will give you "new reasons for feeling sad." We all need that, right?

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