Nuke the Whales 2006-2014

Over the course of their long career, Pere Ubu only made music when they felt like it. Flurries of activity punctuated by sizable hiatuses were routine for the band, which makes the late 2000s and early 2010s -- one of the longest continuous stints in their existence -- such an intriguing time for them. Nuke the Whales 2006-2014 collects Pere Ubus output from this nearly decade-long span, which found them looking to literature, drama, and film for inspiration and delivering works that lived up to their reputation for subversion. On 2006s Why I LUV Women (which was renamed for this collection), David Thomas and company presented love songs that framed their one-of-a-kind surrealism in the literary tradition of Jim Thompsons gritty crime fiction. "Babylonian Warehouses" teeters between fear and attraction as Thomas intones "I fear its you/I hope its you" over crawling atmospheres; on the aptly combustive "Caroleen," he sings the praises of a woman so hot "her name rhymes with gasoline/Her perfume, I think its turpenteen." With 2009s Long Live Pere Ubu!, the band adapted the 1896 Alfred Jarry play that provided their name into a rock opera that made the most of the discord at the heart of their music as well as the works revolutionary wit. While the charging "Road to Reason" is of a piece with the outbursts on the other albums included on Nuke the Whales, at times Long Live Pere Ubu! is far more unsettling -- and surprisingly funny. On "The Story So Far," Thomas Pere Ubu and Communards Sarah Jane Morris (as Ubus scheming wife) whisper not-so-sweet nothings to each other while Gagarins electronics make the songs slinky underpinnings all the stranger. Thomas described Long Live Pere Ubu! as the first truly punk album in 30 years, and hes not far off -- even within the bands discography, its a jolting, potent listening experience like few others. The operas theatricality extended to the other albums collected on Nuke the Whales, 2013s The Lady from Shanghai and 2014s Carnival of Souls. The former album, which was released on the 35th anniversary of Pere Ubus debut album, The Modern Dance, proved they could set paranoia, loathing, and the downright weird to a beat, with results ranging from the obsessive rhythms of "Mandy" to the inversion of Anita Wards "Ring My Bell" on the album opener "Thanks." The latter album, which expanded on the bands score for Herk Harveys influential, low-budget 1962 horror movie, puts Pere Ubus stamp on the films iconic imagery with songs as wide-ranging as the thundering surf-meets-metal workout "Golden Surf II," the zombie-like crawl of "Carnival," the circular doom of "Drag the River," and the lovely "Irene." As with Pere Ubus other era-defining collections like Elitism for the People 1975-1978 or Architecture of Language 1979-1982, Nuke the Whales 2006-2014 does justice to the music they were making at the time, and the darkly captivating tales on these albums are well worth revisiting. ~ Heather Phares