Fock Da Brain-Hole

When I decided to embark on this project, it was really some of the more esoteric corners of The Bluetones' catalogue ouvre that I was most looking forward to writing about. And they don't come much more esoteric than "Fock Da Brain-Hole".

In case the title doesn't give it away, it's a nu-metal parody. Although, coming from October 2000, it actually predates that genre's height of popularity by a little way. "Rollin'" wasn't number one til January 2001, and "In The End" was almost a year away. Things hadn't yet reached the point where I could go to a shool battle of the bands and see 4 out of 6 cover the same Papa Roach song. Perhaps this is part of why "Fock Da Brain-Hole" features so little in the way of venom directed towards anyone specific. It's no "Rockin' The Suburbs", and its barely decipherable, heavily distorted lyrics appear to consist mainly of a drawn out attack on cuban heels.

Only come the eventual punchline (a cheerful, undistorted 'oh, I feel much better now!' at its close) do they really give the game away. While funny on first listen, that puncturing of the song is really detrimental thereafter. Because never mind funny, the rest of it is just great fun. The huge rolling barrage of drums, the pummelling bass, some awe inspiring guitar grinding, even the suprisingly fitting harmonica violence... they actually do a great job at taking the best bits of the visceral nu-metal sound and giving them a little spin of their own. Sure, it's a throwaway. But it's also a semi-logical extension of the genre stretching of Science & Nature, and it's a shame that they never tried anything remotely like it within their more serious work.

mp3: Fock Da Brain-Hole