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Here at your up-to-the minute, news-just-in, 24/7 Judas Kiss, we don’t generally review releases which first appeared a dozen years ago, but this record just came into my possession, and it’s just fantastic, so I’m going to make an exception. Triumph Of The Williams was released way back in 1996 on the Storm Records label founded by Michael Moynihan of Blood Axis renown. The 33 rpm EP contains four tracks, all of which are different versions of songs released on the 1996 album I Have Forgotten How To Love You, which has long been deleted and is now available for download only. ‘I Have Forgotten How To Love You’ opens with a breezy, easy-listening melody, curiously reminiscent of the theme tune for Hill Street Blues. Once David begins to deliver the lyrics in his unmistakeable dry, laconic drawl, though, there’s a startling contrast between the cheerful melody and the sick humour of his words: “A squirrel walked into the mower / Alright, I put him in there if truth be told…” The next track, ‘Sarah's Booted Boy’ is a deep, compulsive, keyboard and bass-driven goth rocker, very much in the vein of The Cure or Joy Division. The song deals, like the 1974 cult film The Night Porter and Sylvia Plath’s famous poem ‘Daddy’, with the sensationally inflammatory theme of sado-masochistic love between Nazis and Jews, and it includes the unforgettable line “I saw the oven of Birkenau between your bony legs”, as well as references to Kristallnacht and the SS. A tinkling melody rapidly rippling over the thudding rhythm section recalls John Carpenter’s Halloween soundtrack. Since this song first infiltrated my ears via the version by Dogs Hate Monet on The Appeal Of Discarded Orthodoxy, the David E. Williams tribute album released last year by Old Europa Café (also reviewed by Judas Kiss), it’s got lodged in my brain as one of my favourite Williams compositions. I even find myself humming its catchy tune at times, which I’m not sure is entirely healthy… Flip the disc, and the B-side commences with the pounding drums and mock-Arabian belly-dancing exotica of ‘Pumpernickel Crust’, a love song of sorts, though with a typically twisted Williams take on romance, featuring references to serial killers and dismemberment. ‘Vaginal Interior Decorator’ features Dick Wagner-style 70s rock guitar licks and a bouncy, loping bass line, courtesy of Jerome Deppe, as well as upbeat bongo drums, which both hark back to the happy tune / sick lyrics dichotomy of ‘I Have Forgotten How To Love You’ and put me in mind of some of Lou Reed’s Transformer-era work. Triumph Of The Williams was released in a limited edition of 666 numbered copies, pressed onto cherry red vinyl and packaged in an elegant grey card sleeve with a separate lyric insert. This delectable demitasse of darkness is, astonishingly, still available direct from the official David E. Williams website, at an extremely reasonable rate too, so go on, do yourself and David a favour, and invest in a copy while you still can. I bet David can’t wait to see the back of that box behind his couch! www.davidewillliams.com www.myspace.com/davidewilliams
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