Saturday, July 29, 2006

The Dirge Of The Ice Tips

Mexico has unofficially declared war on the United States of America. Father Jose Ramalla and several other prominent priests and leaders of The Holy Latin Resistance For God released a media-statement soliciting support from religious citizens of every nation: "Oh, Catholics everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs." Several large paramilitary groups fired rockets across Texas state-lines around five o'clock this morning, twelve of the Ecuadorean-manufactured missiles penetrating as far as Dallas. This open warfare is the inevitable escalation of the last six months of cross-border forays by the Neo-Zapatistas and the HLRFG, whose highly-publicized aim of kidnapping a Texas Ranger was finally achieved twelve hours before the first missile was fired, and six hours after the Texan House of Representatives threatened military reprisal unless the two kidnapped soldiers were returned. While Mexico itself is decrying the actions of its citizens, the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, refuses to openly condemn the NZ or the HLRFG. Father Ramalla insists that neither his Holy Latin Resistance nor the NZ are going to back down from this conflict, even stating that his men have "surprises" in store for the Texas Defense Force and the United States' armies. The Neo-Zapatistas and the HLRFG repeated their "holy and legitimate claims against the swinish American occupiers" and warned that they were willing to keep sending children, armed with explosives, into "occupied Mexican land" until the United States government returns Texas to the Mexican people who settled it in the early 1800's. Half an hour after the last missile landed in Dallas, the president of the United States issued an order to invade Mexican territory. The Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, while condemning NZ and the HLRFG for not using official beauracratic channels to effect change, is cautioning Texas and the US on their use of force, finding the Americans' behaviour to be "aggressive" and "out-of-balance". He has placed several UN watch groups among the Mexican paramilitary and has cautioned the US and Texas not to fire on unarmed UN personnel.

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"Head Vs Hips" + Frosted Tipz (Myspace)

"I just want to prove that we can do it better than all of these bands that I hate," Ross sneers. "These bands like Metric that I really don't listen to ever, and I can't stand, but people just like to put us in that kind of category. I don't think we do anything like that, but if we're going to do anything like that, I want to do it way better than they can do it."

So, Curtis Ross of the Frosted Tipz can't stand the Metric sound, wants to do it better, and doesn't listen to bands like that anyways? Paradox, anyone? Talk about insecurity. That's the kind of reactionary and desperate childishness I expect from teenage hipsters who, say, condemn any music half-way to popular because liking something somebody else might like means compromising their own feeble personalities. To be fair, the VUE Weekly article on the Frosted Tipz seems to have been written by a half-assed art student with an ear for a laboured allusion and a Bullfinch at his elbow, so who knows how much of the band members' words are actually the band themselves or merely the interviewer backhandedly manipulating quotes, right? Either way, though, the band comes across as fairly uneasy in their skin, which is a shame, because it's a good-looking body of work they've got, very attractive, very accessible. Take any hard rock band, mix with a healthy slosh of controller.controller, top off your glass with some ice-cold Metric (Old World Underground Metric, that is), and, suddenly, you're drinking down a brilliant and unique full-length from an Edmonton four-piece you might never have heard of before, but will definitely want to hear more of from now on.

This song is excellent. It's hard, it's rock, it's full of boppy synth and a sexy guitar solo slash bridge. If I was in a basement with a couple of friends, and there was a couch just right for jumping up and down on, this music would be a serious contender for the first spin of the night. The full-length is available at Megatunes, if you're local, or you can talk to them on their Myspace, above.

And I like their music better than the Metric business. Dance metal!

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