Mysterious Mess

Recording Aural Pleasure undefined I Ching Gatos: Mysterious Mess Label: Nido Escondido Productions Genre: Recording By Jeremy Martin Armed with the Nuggets collection and an off-color, multilingual pun that would make James Joyce jealous, I Ching Gatos have genuinely crafted a Mysterious Mess. First track quot;Sing the Mamaquot; provides the album title but starts things off on a relatively subdued note. Guitarist and lead vocalist Joe Sanchez assures quot;I'm OK, I'm just in a whole lot of pain,quot; before enumerating a laundry list of modern-day bellyaches, from American Idol to the War on Terror. While most of the album's songs conclude with exuberantly loud and sloppy guitar solos (think quot;Cortez the Killerquot; working against a shot clock) this one fades into an ambient haze. quot;White Flour Tortillasquot; follows with what at first seems to be a goofy, one-note joke (quot;Not like an uzi but just as dangerousquot;) but ends up as a commentary on culture loss (quot;Tortillas that my mama grande made/ We'd eat them around her table, it seems like yesterday/ Not even her house is there anymore/ We buy our white flour tortillas at the storequot;). quot;Nothing but Moneyquot; and quot;It's Not in the Medicinequot; seem too excessively, unselfconsciously awesome to've been released anytime after 1979 (check out Joe Belk's incontinent drum fills midway through quot;Medicinequot;), but quot;Weapons of Mass Destructionquot; and quot;Suicide Bomberquot; offer a one-two punch of current-ish political rhetoric that'd be easier to take seriously if it didn't sound like the band were having so much fun.