Babes In Toyland & Kat Bjelland – 'The Best Of' (Warner)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
'The History Of' would probably be a more apt title. A 26-track compilation that clocks in at a whopping 79 minutes and 54 seconds, this really does exhaust the work of Kat Bjelland. There are only four seconds of space left on the CD, and it comes as something of a surprise that they aren't filled up with the sound of Kat as a baby putting a pan on her head and banging it, or her first proper guttural belch. Gather round, children, and let us tell you a tale...
Have you got your earplugs in? Smashing - you'll need 'em. Other things on the pre-Babes of Toyland indulgence checklist should be 'patience' and 'an open mind' - a cross beside either of those, or you shan't be allowed in on this little primal rock love-in. It can admittedly all get a bit much. The music has an aesthetic that few others would even dare to attempt - that ethic that most bands use when they start up of playing everything simply, but powerfully (because a lot of them can't play very well yet) was one that was never abandoned. Instead of building on their musical expertise though, it seems throughout Kat's life in bands, her one mission was on every track to sound even more like she meant it on this one than she did on the last one.
And bloody hell, we didn't think anyone could actually sound more impassioned than the vocal on first track proper 'Dust Cake Boy'. You could probably count both the amount of chords and decipherable words used on ten fingers, but that's not the point. It's deafeningly, plainly excellent. The live intro placed before it has the misleading effect of making this whole 'Best Of' feel like a live performance - that's how vital we're talking.
Little room for respite, then. And naturally, this does cause problems. Gems get brushed over on the first few listens as there's a tendency for it all to fit into a pummelling sludge, but eventually comes a revelation - a hands to the heavens moment when the realisation hits that nobody else plays like this, sings (maybe that should be in inverted commas?) like this, bruises like this. Even the slightly ambient bits ('Right Now', 'Istigkeit'... erm, that's both of them) are terrifying. As you'll have guessed however, Babes In Toyland's scathing parts are their most arresting - check out 'Handsome & Gretel' and especially 'He's My Thing' if you want to come away feeling like a terrible, terrible person.
Learning from the mistakes of pretty much every other career retrospective compilation, this one wisely goes for a strict chronology of Bjelland's work. So the first 14 tracks encompass the cream of the Babes, the remainder works through a couple of bands with odd names like The Italian Whorenuns and Crunt (whose 'Unglued' is the strongest track here - one of the finest straight-up rock riffs and vocal performances in memory), and Courtney Love popping up for a duet on 'The Quiet Room' only serves to emphasise how much more interesting and believable Bjelland is as an artist.
Katastrophy Wife round things off but should by no means be ignored as a career footnote - their work more than rivals that of those once in Toyland. No, there's not a lot of difference in the sound, but by now we're resigned to sonic variation not exactly being top of the list of priorities. Let's revel, then, in the tunes - 'Gone Away', 'Liberty Belle' and the at times (honestly) Melvins-esque 'Sweetheart' all count as career highlights, but 'Busiest Shopping Day of the Year' however, is more than a little distressing. Is it about butter, or wife-beating? How many songs can you ask that of?
So 26 tracks and not one of them a stinker - and we say that not because Kat Bjelland has at times here proved herself so terrifying that we find the thought of her hunting us down and acting out some of her more violent wishes upon our person after a less than flattering write-up something that keeps us awake at night, but because this is about as primal, battering and, paradoxical though it may be, rewarding as rock music gets.
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