ALBUM RAISES NEW AND TROUBLING QUESTIONS

Yeah, it sure does.

If Join Us was a sledge hammer, this is an electric hammer throwing machine, and all the hammers have grenades taped to them. It cranks up the "death" aspect of Join Us to 11, to the point where it makes sense that a lot of these outtakes didn't make their way to the album.

Authenticity Trip feels like an intense version of Join Us's themes, and it's very tied to You Probably Get That A Lot and the cephalophores. I've never even seen a headless person. You've never seen it!

Marty Beller Mask is, once again, hammering the themes. They're putting on masks now, because they can't be the people that they were. Stardom is fake. Now I Know — the amount of things is wrong, and it will have to be revised. Is the quantity era dead before it even began?

No delusion like self-delusion, after all; The Fellowship Of Hell tells the tale of self-aggrandizement turning into self-deprecation. In this way, it feels like a conclusion of Join Us; that album went from aggrandizement to full memento mori, and now we're in the fourth stage of grief.

Other stuff: You Probably Get That A Lot (Elegant Too Remix) is the first TMBG remix I like. I don't have anything to say about it, but I like it.

200 Sbemails.