The Motion Sick and Golden Bloom split single on the Sleepy West Records

These two Boston area bands came my way for review via this split single on Sleepy West Records. Turns out when they say 'VS.' on the sleeve they really mean we're into each others' music and are going to prove it with a serious cover of our buddies. It's not a 'VS.' so much as a (heart). Or maybe the rivalry is in the idea of 'wait until you hear what we're going to do with your song'. The stakes are high, you want to impress the other band, but still of course change it just enough to keep it new...maybe even something you'd put into your own set, that wouldn't be so over the top different it never makes sense.
These two are perfectly suited for each others material, which is an aggressively produced pop full of slightly off the path instrumentation, and punchy, up front vocals...with an obvious sense of wink humor. Jack Black just threw your sad bastard cassette tape at you and put these guys on for a Monday turn it up to 11 mix and what are you going to do about it? Probably cry.

The Golden Bloom looks to be the one man project of Shawn Fogel and he covers Motion Sick's '30 lives', playing with the original more mellow tempo at the start and then busting into muted distortion punk pop turning the original into the beginning of building tempest. Like Banned Books, it changes rhythms/sounds on a dime, adopting drum machines for a phrase, then back into precisely engineered kick pattern. It's maddeningly upbeat, the 'ba ba's', sung with manic abandon...it is about 30 video game lives after all...he even goes so far as to breakdown into a Contra cheat code chant. 'up, up, down, down....' Wait, who said we were changing lyrics?

But not to be outdone, The Motion Sick turn 'Doomsday Devices' into a full blown near orchestral production in their own right, horns, slide electric, xylophone, Rhodes organ...they're all building away in layers fading in and out...giving the Golden Bloom track a mellow Wilco, alt-country sounding feel to this cover. It's definitely changing the meaning of 'using my Doomsday Devices'. Originally, Shawn gave it an off kilter tongue in cheek delivery...when all these bad things happen that drive him insane, this time Motion Sick kind of actually mean it, in the bad evil genius not funny way. You know, like that Human Centipede guy.

Get it from The Motion Sick direct.

Golden Bloom and The Motion Sick collide in this head-to-head clash of the pop titans. Golden Bloom covers The Motion Sick's "30 Lives" and The Motion Sick covers Golden Bloom's "Doomsday Devices"