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Way to write of an entire album based on 20-30 seconds everyone!
I'm a selective fan of moments of Fucking Champs records, but mainly the first two albums. I can definitely understand why people would not like them.
Fucking Champs is a celebration of chops deployed in the 70's by a lot of justifiable and even righteous bands from the arc of proto-metal through heavy prog to NWOBHM I and II, and some of it is pretty great, but a lot of it is too self-indulgently over-the-top tech and virtually devoid of human feeling. Just two guitars, both amped stereo on both sides of the drummer so as to never require monitors...the whole set-up was spec-for-spec the same as the Bell/Gorham-era Thin Lizzy. Vintage synths and electronic drums added for some tracks. All three dudes have extreme dexterity and cleverness, but you know how that kinda skill level gets to be sometimes.
"III" and "IV"--the 1st and 2nd albums--each had a song or two with vocals which were rather awesome. A split 7" had a catchy song that sounded like a 70's retro soundtrack hit. Some of the interstitial moments between titan rockers had a wispy new-age, almost Vangelis feel. Even that has its appealing moments.
But by the time "V" had rolled around, I was tired of 'em.
The thing that may have changed my mind about 'em was that I saw them live, and I was surrounded by a buncha ultrafan-nerds who were airdrumming and airguitarring and generally trying to do everything possible to prove that they knew the entire Fucking Champs catalog riff-for-riff and note-for-note. There were even some blowhards there pretending to conduct the band members like a symphony orchestra. One of them appeared to have a coffee stirrer that he had saved from his last latté sesh. What an idiot!
Anyway, yeah...the band were perfect that night in execution, and it was about as interesting to watch as a Locust show, minus the funny heckles....which is to say: B-O-R-I-N-G!
The guitarists just played while watching their fingers do the flawless fretwork all night, and there were two encores. The only thing decent about it was standing in front of the subwoofer and feeling the drums in the sternum. Had I been anywhere else, I'd be thinking, "Okay, this is more fun to listen to in the car when I'm driving fast."
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