Cop Shoot Cop – Release

Not had much positive to say about Cleopatra releases in the past, but I can't fault this one. The record is heavy, flat and plays with no surface noise; the mastering sounds great and not brickwalled like a lot of other stuff on the label; and the sleeve is sturdier than with most Cleopatra records. Can definitely recommend this to anyone after a copy of the album.

From the UK, it's a fantastic pressing. It's like having the band in my living room.

it's taken me nearly 30 years to realise that Slackjaw is CSC's take on Foetus' Sick Man. It's only relistening to early Foetus material now that I see how influential Thirlwell was on Tod A.

How does this ores sound in comparison to the yellow vinyl press Cleopatra put out?

This is Tod's most accomplished vision, anybody with a sense of a perception of what a PERFECT set of songs in the industrial / metal / noise and yes, POP (omg, you CAN'T do that) vein could be, This is It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and the closest thing to The Jesus Lizard you will ever hear)

what the hell did interscope do to cop shoot cop? that must have been the question on people's minds...

i know more guitars usually sounds like a good idea, but cop shoot cop's shtick was always that they were an anti-authoritarian rock band without a guitar player. what? an anti-authoritarian rock band without a guitar player? the truth is they had two bassists.

it's hard to understand how anybody else beside the label was behind the addition of a guitar player; they would have been virtually unmarketable as a hard rock act in 1994 without a guitar player. the result is a sort of jim morrison take on a standard collection of punk rock political ideals; this is actually a fairly successful wedding, but it's just not what would be expected from a cop shoot cop record.

excuse my bluntness, but the fourth through seventh tracks, inclusive, are just stupid.

tod ashley has a noticeable jim thirlwell fetish, but thirlwell's name is not on this particular disc. it comes out as a mocking bluesy swagger that dares the world to take it on, all the while bemoaning it's own materialistic flaws. it's a sort of open hypocrisy that invites and encourages your condescension. hidden somewhere in there is just a decent guy with a solid intuitive sense of justice - and a wicked sense of humour - that just can't fucking deal with the fact that important decisions are made by those with less stringent morals. tod ashley's writing was always the centerpiece of this act. it's the typical "decent and moral guy trying to make sense of a messed up world" kind of thing.

it is ashley's personality that makes the disc hard to judge. by all objective standards, it should be a dismal failure - they sold out to the label, destroyed their trademark sound and produced a generic record in the process. yet, this is why you're supposed to pity the character - because he does things like this, then fills the record up with anti-authoritarian rants. what else would cop shoot cop fans have really expected?

it is the fact that ashley's personality was easily transferable from an off-the-wall no-wave act to a radio friendly modern rock act that allows me to cautiously suggest that the record is worth ing, if you can handle radio friendly modern rock; the truth is that, by modern rock standards, this is a conceptually deep record with a larger than average palette of references.

it is when ashley's bombast intersects with big band horn and tom sections that the record hits it's highest points, which are also it's most absurdly surreal ones.