Fruit Looops - Last Chance at the Pharmacy CS (Torn Light, 2022)
"Fruit LoOops vocalist Jackie Switzer opened their 2020 LP, Orangina, with these words. You didn't even have that much of a choice. A mere .001 second later, you were compelled by the sheer bedlam that would follow those words: A full drum kit falling down the stairs, the throaty skronk of a saxophone, and discordant blasts of sample-heavy synths pushed all the way into the red. Two years later, the Cincinnati-based, Noise-Addled Art Punks are back with a proper full-length release that stretches the manic energy of those first 5 seconds across 11 tracks of carefully deconstructed Post-Punk. Imagine DEVO / Macula Dog absurdism channeled through the menacing noise and danceable beats of the roster of Skingraft / Load Records.
Throughout Last Chance at the Pharmacy, the quintet succeeds in bringing everything that's constantly ping-ponging in Switzer’s and performer Sam Jayne’s heads into a cohesive and admirably executed album – one that knows when to throttle back… and when to pour gasoline into a poorly-ventilated practice space and light a match.
Moments of pure, transcendent chaos are plentiful, in which Patrick Apfelbeck’s percussion, Kevin Hall’s synths, Eric Dietrich’s aerophone / saxophone, and Switzer’s vocals are locked in with the increasing speed and preciseness of a radar tracking missile. On tracks like “Pharmacy,” slabs of noise hit dead-on with every consonant of Switzer’s ferocious vocals, while the appropriately titled “Tanker” features supertanker-sized holes between notes, filled in with squealing guitars, saxophone, and Switzer’s affected drawl.
Fruit LoOops achieves perfectly measured sonic decimation throughout the entire runtime of Last Chance at the Pharmacy. They’re at their best and most unhinged, and Last Chance represents a major step forward for the Cincinnati group as the torchbearers of Ohio’s gleeful and weird Art-Punk underbelly." - TL