El Creepo! El Creepo!
by Derric Miller
Staff Writer
It’s almost a poetic injustice that Todd Smith is named “Todd Smith,” and it’s also sneaky as hell. Now “Sasha Baron Cohen,” that’s the kind of name you’d expect someone criminally creative to be named. But “Todd Smith” … isn’t that baptismal name of rapper LL Cool J, and the title of one of his albums? Nevertheless, Todd Smith (Dog Fashion Disco, The Altar Boys, Polkadot Cadaver, Knives Out!) has unleashed his first solo project, titled El Creepo!, and the term “criminally creative” certainly adheres itself to this release.
The one draw of everything Smith has involved himself with is the lyrical bedlam, from repeat lines like “Your eyes look just like bullet holes” he’s used in both tracks “Chloroform Girl” (Polkadot Cadaver) and also “Barely Breathing” (Dog Fashion Disco), to writing a song about Satan as a tiny baby, with horns and a crooked spine. In a recent interview with Hardrock Haven, Smith spoke of the process of penning lyrics as “pulling them out of the ether.” Now, with anyone else, you’d call it “artistic bullshit,” but Smith isn’t trying to impress anyone; it is what it is. The lyrics are clearly the highlight of El Creepo!, but the songs are nearly their equal.
“Lazy Tiger” is your first taste of Smith’s solo sound. Acoustic plucking, vocals mostly in falsetto, no drums or bass, and of course, lyrics like “you put the ‘fun’ back in funerals.” What is “Lazy Tiger” about? It doesn’t really matter, but El Creepo! offers religious imagery throughout, and that brush strokes this composition as well. One thing you’ll have to realize is that El Creepo! never ventures into Hardcore or Metal land. He’s done it before, and El Creepo! is a whole new twisted animal.
The religious tones grow on “Witch Hunt,” especially when you get to the chorus: “Let’s start a witch hunt, scapegoat the pagan ghost. Cupid shoots poison arrows, at the virgins and the scarecrows. Let’s pass the Koolaid; strychnine and strawberry. It’s a Jonestown holiday, and all the children are in their graves.” The eerie part is Smith’s happy-go-lucky sing-song delivery here; you wouldn’t know he’s dissecting numerous themes at the same moment, sometimes, with the same words casting different meanings. While the song is “plucky,” it’s pretty existential and not at all meant to be fun … well, maybe in the funereal sense.
For some reason, Smith scribes perfect stalker songs. “Orange Peel Sunrise” is much the same, with lyrics describing the relational torment with sentiments like “I’ll take you home, and skin you like an orange peel sunrise. Stripped to the bone, I think we could go all night … that’s right!” If you are a fan of The Doors, well, Smith does his best Jim Morrison vocally here, and the song features Doors-like LSD-laced lyrics, porn-styled riffs and classic organ passages.
Johnny Cash is also an influence on Smith, and so is Will Ferrell, at least in his Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby incarnation. The line “And I’m riding on a skeleton horse through the gates of hell” was a line in that movie, and it stuck with Smith to the extent he penned a song about it. With a dire acoustic opening and Ferrell inspired macho chants, there’s a lot to dig here.
The title track, “El Creepo!,” is reminiscent of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While Smith snarl/whispers the opening lines, groovy bass lines and quirky as hell riffs surround his vocals. This is where the album speeds up, where the opening tracks were mellower and written in a more story-telling mode. This is about as close to DFD or Polkadot Cadaver you’ll get on El Creepo! The next couple tracks, “Hitman” and “Hot Little Temper,” continue the heavier route, and are just as impressive.
Still, it’s all about being creepy, and for that, Smith’s vocals and just acoustic guitar are all you need, like on “Space Needle.” It begs clarity, and additional noise would water down the unhinged sincerity, which is naked when Smith sings, “You remind me of a snake, but only when you smile.” It gets weirder, with the refrain, “When you’re high, watching someone die.” The way he sings, in a semi-falsetto and earnestly, should unsettle you to various degrees.
“Bloody Mary” closes the album, and it’s a return to religious imagery, when he sings, “Bury me inside your garden. Under intelligent trees. Beneath the snake and tempting apples, let the roots grow into me.” Want to deconstruct that phrase? OK … there’s the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, Satan and man’s fall from grace. And that’s just the opening verse. The chorus, “Blood Mary say goodbye, to the all the hopeless souls, Christ left behind. Bloody Mary say goodnight, you’ve been a bleeding statue since the day that Jesus died,” probably won’t be the Religious Right’s anthem. Whether Smith is an atheist or agnostic, he has used El Creepo! to both make fun of and cast doubt upon organized religion. Would you expect anything less?
El Creepo! can pretty much be what you want it to be. Weirdly melodic, intelligently flippant, cuttingly accessible, or a mixture of all three. Smith proved on El Creepo! that he’s no one-trick dead pony (that gets beat to death, again). Words don’t really do it justice; you are going to have to hear this creation yourself.
Label: Rotten Records
Track listing:
1. Lazy Tiger
2. Witch Hunt
3. Orange Peel Sunrise
4. Easy Killer
5. Skeleton Horse
6. The Art of Bullfighting
7. El-Creepo!
8. Hitman
9. Hot little Temper
10. Bachanian Desert Heathens
11. Pitchfork
12. Space Needle
13. Bloody Mary
HRH Rating: 8.7/10