Hang on, before we do this, let me give you a moment to freak out over
your breakfast:
All set.
That’s Bobby Peru up there, as played by Willem Defoe, the awful
antagonist of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
(I won’t spoil how he ends up.) The band Bobby Peru of Portland, Oregon,
clearly found something to like about this whacked-out rebel, and named their
band after him. I don’t blame them at all – they perfectly embody the spirit of
unhinged chaos Defoe’s character was capable of at any given moment.
And unhinged they, Bobby Peru, the band, are. I fawned
over them when they released their debut cassette EP, and I stand by a lot
of what I said there. This is fantastic post punk/noise rock, self-flagellating
like Pissed Jeans but stupidly drunk all the time like an alternate reality
version of Rocket from the Crypt with no horns and David Yow’s personality. They’ve
tightened up even further, and every second of 20th Century Masters drips with venom and sarcasm and an
uninhibited sense of self-destruction. There should be nothing stopping you
from cranking this as loud as it goes. It’s way funner if you do that.
--Ryan Masteller
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