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• MUSIC REVIEW (Alternative) •

Furnaceface Clobbering Time (15 Furnaceface Favourites...) Artist Home Page Check out Slo' Tom's solo stuff! Buy it now at TuneVault.com!

Label: Upright Released: 3/1/2000

Ottawa band Furnaceface have been around since 1990 and recently released their fifth full-length album. Faced with a tour to support the new album and no back-catalogue to sell on tour (their label Cargo records of Montreal went bankrupt and took all their inventory with them) they decided to venture into heretofore unexplored territory for a local band: release a "greatest hits" package! "Clobbering Time (15 Furnaceface favourites plus a bunch that other people like" is the 18-track result of their deliberations.

When I first put the CD in the player and hit Play, I wasn't expecting much. Not that I don't like the band but I've seen them dozens of times, opened for them a few times, done sound for them a few times, done artwork for 2 of their CD's and a bunch of posters and stuff, and known them all for 10 years or so... with all this exposure how could one more Furnaceface CD have any impact on me? I could only assume I was fully Furnaceface-saturated. Suffice it to say, I was wrong.

This CD is one of the most fun listens I've had in a long time. Sometimes it's hard to put a band like Furnaceface in perspective, they've been around so long they almost become part of the furniture. It's just a given... another 2 years, another tour, another CD. Sometimes it takes a CD like Clobbering Time to put everything in perspective; they've been around since 1990 (!), put out 5 albums, many singles and appeared on many compilations, but most importantly, they've got some damn fine songs! They've managed to mix and massage their mod, punk and rock sensibilities for ten years without losing their enthusiasm and sense of humour and this CD is a fine testament to all their blood, sweat and tears. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hit Shuffle on your CD player. Who would ever have imagined the indie-rock lo-fi "Sucked Into Drugland" (1990) juxtaposed with the Bosstones-like horns of "Clobbering Time" (1996)? Who would have even imagined the white-funk of "I Don't Think" on a small silver digitally-encoded piece of plastic?

Whether you're an existing fan or have yet to sample the musical erogenous zones of "the Face", this CD will whet your palate and leave you lying in a ditch somewhere wondering what hit you and where you can get more. Or put it in your CD player along with their new disc, hit Random Play and you're set for 2 hours of travel through furnace-land.

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