The Bottom Line: Baby Chaos is for rock fans only. The guitars are loud and the songs are average. It's not brilliant music by a long shot, but give it a chance.
lambchops's Full Review: Safe Sex Designer Drugs & The Death of Rock 'N' Ro...
Baby Chaos, a mid 1990’s alternative rock outfit from Scotland, is obscure to even me. As a connoisseur of all things good in alternative rock, I have little knowledge of the band aside from a few singles that got some very minor airplay six or seven years ago.
Formed in 1993, Baby Chaos released just two albums before parting ways. Mixing rock and roll with a dash of pop, the Stewarton band toured incessantly throughout 1993 and 1994 before landing a record deal with EastWest. Led by Chris Gordon (vocals, guitar) and rounded out by Bobby Dunn (bass), Grant McFarlane (guitar, vocals), and Davy Greenwood (drums), the little known band never made a splash stateside or in the UK.
I guess the problem was probably was likely that their sound was nondescript and recycled. Rock fans had heard it all before and found it difficult to buy into another cookie cutter alternative band. In all honesty, Baby Chaos had a tiny bit more to offer than their popularity would seem to imply. The guitars are consistently good with grinding riffs and infectious melodies. The songs aren’t particularly pretentious, although then again they also aren’t notable.
Baby Chaos debuted on EastWest in 1995 with Safe Sex, Designer Drugs of the Death of Rock 'N' Roll. The band represents a good effort to blend metal, rock, pop, and punk. The album could have been better and could have been different, instead this Baby Chaos record won’t go down in history as much of anything at all. It seems that they used Soundgarden et al. as a reference point while recording the tracks. It’s too bad that alternative/grunge/rock music was more than a bit passé in 1995.
Safe Sex, Designer Drugs of the Death of Rock 'N' Roll consists of eleven songs. Most are at least average while there are a few standouts. For example, I enjoy Saliva and if memory serves me the song actually got some radio airplay a few years ago. The song is loud, obnoxious, and not particularly difficult on the years as a result of Gordon’s ultimately smooth and comforting vocals.
Another song that I can recall vaguely is Go To Hell. The track begins innocently enough with muted vocals, controlled electric guitars, and understated drums. About half way through the track it breaks into pure metal. This break in style is both welcome and immediately enjoyable. One of the things that really needs to be mentioned about Baby Chaos is that the songwriting wasn’t in the least bit profound nor did it always even manage to make much sense. The words seem to have been pieced together with the ultimate goal of sounding cool when accompanied by guitars. Here’s an example from Go To Hell:
Control your hate can I relate
Control your hate accept your fate.
But the song that I recall the most from this album is Buzz. It got a fair amount of attention back in its day but now has been all but forgotten by radio. If this track is any indication of the direction that Baby Chaos was headed then the foursome would certainly be famous by now. It is unassuming rock music with great vocals, great tempo changes, interesting breaks, and a catchy chorus. Of all the songs on this album, Buzz is definitely the best.
Other decent although much too similar tracks include: Sperm, Hello Victim and Golden Tooth. There really is little really bad I can say about this debut album. I’ve heard a lot worse things in music than Safe Sex, Designer Drugs of the Death of Rock 'N' Roll. The album isn’t for pop fans. Nor is it for fans of Brit Pop. Rather, this is an album for fans of mainstream rock and metal. It’s louder than anything from Crud…er…Creed. It’s more musically useful than the Nu Metal of recent memory. Oh, and I bet you can get it cheap on Half.com.
Anyway. I like this album enough to recommend it to rock fans. Buzz is a great track and the other ten songs are average at worst and unremarkable at best. Baby Chaos broke up after releasing their first major label album Love Your Self Abuse in 1997 on Atlantic.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Track Listing:
1. Sperm
2. Saliva
3. Go To Hell
4. Breathe
5. Hello Victim
6. Buzz
7. Bullet For The End, A
8. Camel
9. Golden Tooth
10. Gazelle Boy
11. Superpowered
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