On May 23, 1997, Tim Taylor, lead singer of Brainiac, died in a car accident. Indie myth has it that Taylor's head was severed in the crash. The myth is probably bunk, but if Taylor wasn't decapitated, his band certainly was.
Boasting a tight new-wave sound, schizophrenic synthesizers, and a Tim Burton-esque take on art, Brainiac had been going places. It had released three strong albums in four years and cultivated a style that was completely its own. Album number four was progressing quickly, and rumor had it the band was about to sign with heavyweight record label Dreamworks. Brainiac could have been a contender. But if it's any consolation to the surviving band members - had you guys become a big national success, I probably wouldn't be writing a column about you.
Unfortunately, after Taylor died the band vaporized: The other members couldn't finish an album without his psychotic vocals and synthesizer. But then again, it's hard to imagine how the band could have topped its last album, 1996's Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, anyway. Noisy, abrasive and utterly unique, Brainiac may have died young, but the band left a good-sounding corpse.
Brainiac lived outside its musical times, but never strayed farther from the normal than on Hissing. Imagine Devo interpreting Beck's Odelay with Pee Wee Herman providing direction, and you're close.
Taylor explodes from the get-go, screaming like a cracked-up Mick Jagger on "Pussyfootin" over a fury of guitar, and then pretty much outdoes his own performance on the next track, "Vincent Comes Down." Midway through, Hissing gets sinister. "This Little Piggy" terrifies with screeching bursts of guitar, computerized vocal echoes, and sociopathic lyrical ramblings ("Well, I'm struck out to burn an epicurean world ... You can't win, whaddya think about that?"). "Strung" is basically two minutes of electronic scampering, droning bass, and horror film screams, while Taylor gets extra spastic on the menacing "Hot Seat Can't Sit Down." The album goes down in a Scarface-like blaze on the final track, "I am a Cracked Machine." Taylor gives his vocal chords the Howard Dean treatment, with raving dehumanized lyrics and the instruments match every ounce of his hysteria. It's asylum rock at its best.
So come on. You're tired of Nirvana, you're burned out on Hendrix, and there are too many dead rappers to even try and keep track of them. Get crazy and make Brainiac your favorite musical tragedy.
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