This album starts off with a little bit of a hiccup, “Structure Image Approach”. I mean, for an instrumental intro that lasts 26 seconds you can’t really expect too much. But honestly I WAS expecting a bit more. Most of this track you can barely even make out anything that’s going on, and you’re constantly turning up the volume just to hear the tiny instrumentals. It really doesn’t even make any difference to be honest. Quickly Dwyer brings in one of the first tracks released from this album, “Bog Dash”. At the very least this one gets going quick. Damaged Bug over the years have slowly started to sound more and more like Thee Oh Sees, with “Bog Dash” sounding like it would have fit snuggly on Thee Oh Sees last album. It’s hectic sounding, and fueled mostly by its own weirdness. The sound effects here are completely over the top, the instrumentals are funky, and Dwyer’s vocals mirror his work with other projects. But it’s still very low-fi sounding, very skeletal and fragile sounding for sure. It does have a great groove however, and for those of you who love to hear Dwyer at his weirdest you’ll probably love this. But to be honest, “Bog Dash” sort of rubs me the wrong way. It’s not terrible, but to me it just comes off way to disjointed. Like the last Oh Sees album, a ton of this comes off sounding improvisational. And that’s fine, that’s cool and all, but just like with the last Oh Sees album I feel like this would be a TON more interesting live. The very hectic feel to this album continues next with “The Cryptologist”. The guitars here are tight, and honestly I love Dwyer’s very hushed performance here, it gives everything a very tightly wound feel. I think my main issue with this is just how much this project continues to sound like a back-step for Dwyer Years ago, Thee Oh Sees explored these sounds so much more interestingly, yet here we are returning to these sounds so many years later. For what reason? It’s not like bands sometimes go from a flashier sound to a grimier sound, but this honestly just comes off immature sounding. However, a lot of the elements here are solid, like the very sight claustrophobic atmosphere and that flute that’s absolutely to die for. Thankfully Dwyer starts turning this project around quick with “Slay The Priest”. It’s even stranger and heavier, but man does it ever feel calculating and dangerous. While it’s so much slower than the other tracks here, it’s certainly justified. THIS is the sound that Damaged Bug should be going for. Here, Dwyer’s thoughts sound complete, the synths he brings in give off this fantastic feeling of impending doom, and the vocals while they take a while to come in are totally worth the wait. If Dwyer is so intent on going for more of a Low-Fi sound with this Damaged Bug project, this “Low Fi House Of Horrors” that he has on display here is certainly the way to go. His vocals are totally out there, but they contribute so much to the fantastic atmosphere that I can’t help but love it. The later synth work is some of the most freakish I’ve heard all year, and the constant flute arpeggios in the background wind up the atmosphere even further. For a Damaged Bug track, this is absolutely brilliant. “Ugly Gamma” wakes you up immediately with some bizarre synths and plenty of bleeps and bloops galore. To me, this still sounds like this would have fit wonderfully with the Spacey-Horror that the last Oh Sees record brought us, but I digress. Once again here, Dwyer sounds like he’s completing his thoughts so much more compared to earlier tunes. His performance here has a seriously twisted vibe to it. Not to mention, behind him he’s got all sorts of wailing guitars and explosions (literally) giving this one quite the contrast. It’s excellent honestly, and proves that there sure is a whole lot of potential within this project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnsAcMsbes0
“Rick’s Jummy” is up next, continuing on with the tightly wound feel of everything here. Not to mention between the album cover and the songs themselves there’s a real post apocalyptic feel to everything here. As this album goes on, I feel like Dwyer’s performances get more and more in line with where they should be. Here, he certainly sound his usually freakish and strange self, but it’s not too much where its drowning everything else out. The instrumentals continue to sound a little improvisational for my liking, but this one certainly has a groove to carry it nicely at least. “Gimme Tamanthum” right off the bat gets on my bad side, something about the production on here doesn’t click with me. The way the guitars are mixed on this track to sound so low and the drums over powering everything gives me sort of a “Jam” feel again, but this one is just so sloppy. Thankfully as this track rolls on, the guitars do get louder, but even then this track continues to really get on my nerves. The only element to this track that I can seriously get into fully is Dwyer’s performance. I love his hushed, anxious performance. More often than not, Dwyer is just so good at creating these very tightly wound atmospheres. Than, there’s an overly long OVER ONE MINUTE of an outro that’s beyond unnecessary and I just get all grumpy again. Every time I feel like Dwyer is out of ideas though, he pulls out a fantastic track like “No One Notice The Fly” that immediately gets me interested again. This track comes out of nowhere completely and honestly is a huge risk for Dwyer, but it works wonderfully. I love the tight instrumentals all being seemingly lead by that very skittish flute. It’s an instrumental, but man does it ever work well with the sound of everything here. Even the quirky synths that pop in don’t overstay their welcome. In a weird way though, I would be certainly interested to hear a fully instrumental Damaged Bug project. The album’s title track, “Bunker Funk” is up next, and boy is it ever a good title for this track. This is by the funkiest thing I’ve heard so far. But it just seems a little incomplete to me. It has plenty of bizarre sound effects and all, but sadly this one comes off as sort of gimmicky. The best tracks on any John Dwyer project show him being himself and letting his bizarre side come out freely. Tracks like this sort of sound like he’s trying way too hard. There are certainly cool instrumentals here, but man at it’s core this one is faceless. “Mood Slime” isn't that much of a step in the right direction either. While I continue to love Dwyer’s performances, here, the instrumental is putting me right to sleep. Every time I feel like it’s going to pick up a little bit, nothing comes of this. I feel like Dwyer for this one took a bunch of sounds and ideas that he’s already used here and rehashed them in some weird mash-up. “Mood Slime” overall is sadly really boring.
“Liquid Desert” leads us right back to that improv sort of sound. But holy shit, if the earlier tracks like this sounded sloppy, this is sloppy to the next level. There’s practically no rhythm or anything to this one, just a bunch of halfway decent instrumentals that are thrown together so poorly that they end up sounding not-so-halfway-decent anymore. If you pick apart tracks like this, there’s actually a TON of great stuff going on, but together it just comes off very messy. The most consistent element to this album continues to be Dwyer’s vocal performances, which have been fantastic almost constantly. Then, Dwyer wants to throw another killer instrumental at us. “Heavy Cathedral” has a HEAVY dream like feel to it that sounds like it doesn’t even belong on this album. It’s light on the ears, and continues to sound very DIY, but it’s also twisted in a beautiful sort of way. It’s a fantastic instrumental, and ends up being a total standout even though it’s only a minute long. Not for nothing, I still stand by my thoughts on how interesting a fully instrumental Damaged Bug project would be. “Unmanned Scanner” up next brings back that much heavier and groovier sound, and may be the most distorted track here. To be honest, “Unmanned Scanner” sounds a whole lot like an Oh Sees song, without sounding too similar too. Basically, I just get this great feeling from this track that John Dwyer is completely being himself, and it comes off wonderfully. “Unmanned Scanner” is completely bizarre and quirky, and sticks with a lot of the atmosphere and lyrical topics we’ve gotten on the rest of this album. Where was this sound for the rest of the album? But just when I feel like Dwyer is gonna end this album on a really positive note, he give us “The Night Shopper”. This sound is literally the exact opposite of what worked so well for the last few tracks. While I still certainly do love Dwyer’s performance again, it’s easily one his most truly disturbing ones here, I wish instrumentally this one picked up. Sure, that flute I was dying to here more of earlier has returned, but everything else seems so incomplete. “The Night Shopper” could have been a fantastic ending, but ends up being seriously underwhelming.
Rating - 6.4/10
Give A Listen To: “Slay The Priest”, “Ugly Gamma”, “No One Notice The Fly”, “Unmanned Scanner”
Overall Thoughts: John Dwyer's Damaged Bug persona remains to have tons of real potential but doesn't capitalize on it. Dwyer has made a career of being a truly odd dude, but half of the time here it comes off forced. And when it doesn't, the songs here presented to us would probably a whole lot more interesting live with a little improv thrown in. There are some good moments, but I'm still not impressed with this side project.
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