(Mar 26, 2009)

A peculiar feeling washes over me whenever I discover in my mailbox a new album from Kitchener noise-rock misanthropes Iron Bitchface, a surprisingly common occurrence.

The feeling is an odd emotional mish-mash of glee, curiosity and dread.
Glee because, hey, free CD!

Curiosity because it's impossible to predict what, exactly, Iron Bitchface will have recorded on their umpteenth album (there have been a lot of them, including last year's charmingly titled Kitten Apocalypse).

Dread because, no matter what Iron Bitchface has recorded on the album, it's almost certainly going to be migraine-inducingly abhorrent.

The brand new Iron Bitchface album, There Be Trolls In These Woods, is no exception to this rule. It's a three-track, 16-minute collection of feedback, squelch, static, distortion and, in a surprising new twist, a tiny hint of rhythm.

Here are some sounds that are more pleasant than this CD:

Your dentist's drill burrowing into your bicuspid.

Nails scraping down a chalkboard, played through a megaphone pointed into your ear.

The teething, colicky baby wailing in the seat next to you for the entire duration of a trans-atlantic flight.

Richard Simmons.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh.

But harshness is precisely the raison-d'etre of Iron Bitchface, a band that, despite having been on the scene for the better part of a decade, has failed to create even one catchy melody or sing-along-able chorus. Not one!

Harsh is their schtick. And they do harsh extremely well, which is as close to praise as this review is going to get.

But I have a confession to make: I have grown to love Iron Bitchface, in a way.

To clarify, I don't love Iron Bitchface's music, because no sane person could.

What I love is the idea of Iron Bitchface -- the idea of a band that has never rehearsed and can't play music by any traditional standards, but nevertheless has a long catalogue of releases, tours frequently and can always draw a crowd. Iron Bitchface is an anti-band, and they have anti-fans.

Get this: Iron Bitchface is currently on a 20-date North American tour, which stops tonight at a nightclub in Minneapolis. Tomorrow, Iron Bitchface hits Chicago. I kid you not.

While countless other bands have come and gone from the local scene, Iron Bitchface has persevered -- not in spite of their lack of musical talent, but apparently because of it.

And no matter how many CD reviews I write describing the utter terribleness of Iron Bitchface's music, new albums keep arriving in my mailbox.

If Iron Bitchface has deserves any genuine praise, this is it: they can sure handle criticism.

http://news.guelphmercury.com/arts/article/457879