BOMB

HATE FED LOVE

  1/  Made To Fire                               (Bomb)                        5.17
  2/  All My References Are Dead                 (Bomb)                        4.19
  3/  Love Fed Hate                              (Bomb)                        4.50
  4/  The Power of Suggestion                    (Bomb)                        4.26
  5/  Hey Richard                                (Bomb)                        5.30
  6/  There Is No Promise of a Future            (Bomb)                        2.58
             In the Moment
  7/  Hot Bloody Hearts                          (Bomb)                        5.27
  8/  Suzanne                                    (Leonard Cohen)               6.05
  9/  Goodbye Baby                               (Bomb)                        5.14
  10/ The Devil Is Us                            (Bomb)                        6.24

          Recorded at Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York
          Engineered by Robert Musso and Oz Fritz
          Assistant engineers: Imad Mansour and Paul Berrie
          Drum Tech: Artie Smith
          Mixed at Platinum Island Studios and East Hill Studios by Jason Corsaro
          Produced by Bill Laswell and Bomb
          Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

Tony Fag: drums; Michael Dean: vocals, bass; Hilsinger: guitar, vocals; Jay Crawford: guitar, vocals.

          1992 - Reprise/Warner Bros. (USA), 9 45036-2 (CD)

Note: Bill Laswell does not play on this album.

REVIEWS :

The last song is remarkable (see mp3 link provided by the other reviewer below), and in fact invents its own genre, somewhat like Helmet meets Sonic Youth. If you remove the vocals, it sounds a lot like Blind Idiot God or Don Caballero. But the rest of the album is pretty annoying. Bomb sounded like a crude combination of various AmRep and Touch & Go bands, with a focus mainly on attitude and a passive-aggressive, "confrontational" vibe. Bill Laswell produced it, but you can't tell. Most of these neanderthalic drug-rock bands simply should not have been signed to major labels in the wake of Nirvana, and this disc provides many reasons why. Beavis and Butt-head would have loved this band, since they loved anything with a loud, in-your-face, "alternative" sound and strained vocalizing. I have never seen this CD for sale anywhere, either used or new. Usually these kind of albums clog up the dollar bins that I frequent, so I'm not sure why it's so rare. (I bet Chokebore was heavily influenced by this album, though.) The singer/bassist went on to write a book about his allegedly hedonistic rock n' roll lifestyle called Starving In The Company Of Beautiful Women, which has gotten oddly glowing reviews. I'm not sure why I wrote so much here, but I guess I did it mainly due to being baffled by how high the average rating is. I would compare this band to The God Machine, because both had a sort of lumbering, unintentionally funny "darkness" and a woe-is-me, grunge-dustrial sound. shockofDAYLIGHT (courtesy of the Rate Your Music website

..................................................

Much of what Michael Dean & co. are about cannot be captured on tape (at least for those in a position to compare his live and recorded performances in previous incarnations of Bomb as well as early band Baby Opaque). Bomb's attitude in performance -- always bordering on chaos -- is too important to the effect. Despite having always been wowed by Bomb's live shows, I was surprised they were signed by a major label. I always thought they weren't "safe" enough to be marketable.

On the down side of Hate Fed Love, the band's arty pretensions produce outlandish lyrical excesses. Songs veer between depictions of lurid shock-rock decadence or suicidal disenchantment so dolorous they make Ian Curtis's musings seem sunny -- and understated -- in comparison. The lyrics often come off as overwrought and trite.

On the up side, despite Bill Laswell's production (which assures an emphasis on their metallic edge), the band maintain plenty of their decidedly skewed identity. Even at their worst, Bomb are worth multiple listenings.

Some songs here show marks of extraordinary inspiration, like "The Power of Suggestion," which combines a jagged, Black & White-era Stranglers guitar lead with Dean's giddy vocal hebephrenia; and "There Is No Promise," featuring a similarly jolting rhythm and drunk-on-the-apocalypse percussion. At such moments, you can see Bomb as the latest in a line of inbred and eccentric San Francisco geniuses.

Phil Pegg from Puncture Magazine, Spring 1993, Issue #26