Difficult Is Easy by Red Monkey (CD, Jul-2004, Troubleman Unlimited)

Album Features
UPC:	694630003229
Artist:	Red Monkey
Format:	CD
Release Year:	2004
Record Label:	Troubleman Unlimited
Genre:	Rock & Pop

Track Listing
1. This Medium Is Not the Message
2. Bike Song
3. Paper Crown
4. Straight Lines Don't Fit
5. My Bed and Ancestry
6. Waiting for Now
7. Kissing With Tongues
8. Power and Dependence
9. In Her Own Write
10. Glitterglue and 1/3
11. Gioco in the Dimensioni

Details
Playing Time:	34 min.
Distributor:	Alternative Dis. Alliance
Recording Type:	Studio
Recording Mode:	Stereo
SPAR Code:	n/a

Album Notes
Red Monkey: Pete (vocals, guitar); Rachel (vocals, bass); Marc (drums).Personnel: Phil Tyler (violin).Recording information: Uncle Sams Studio, Newcastle, England (1998).Red Monkey's core has always been their politics, and Difficult Is Easy is no exception. The band has always advanced their agenda -- down with materialist culture, up with self-actualization -- in refreshingly idealistic but occasionally clumsy slogans. Here, though, Red Monkey's music doesn't deliver often enough on the rush of empowerment that the group's lyrics promise. The album doesn't feature much variation in dynamics or texture and only a few passages are particularly catchy, so the songs all end up sounding fairly similar. Despite the pervasive sameness, Red Monkey's sound on Difficult Is Easy is impressive enough: the group's precise, angular post-punk sounds a bit like the Minutemen minus any funk influence, or like Fugazi with a more minimal, less-distorted guitar sound. But tracks on which Red Monkey manage to muster a memorable groove or a surprise dynamic change are the exception rather than the rule. Red Monkey newcomers should check out Difficult Is Easy only after hearing the later Gunpowder Treason & Plot, in which Red Monkey managed to combine their taut, jittery sound with more savvy songwriting. ~ Charlie Wilmoth

Editorial Reviews
7 out of 10 - ...Equal parts Fall-esque rabble-rousing and Fugazi rhythmic rattle, DIFFICULT IS EASY...is a delectable feast of corkscrew angsty thrash and elegantly melancholic softer passages...
NME

4 out of 5 - ...Red Monkey are a cold, brisk glass of uncontaminated spring water surrounded by a mountain of precariously stacked garbage bags filled with bloody pus...
Alternative Press (19991001)