Overthinking: CKY - Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your DC House Co. shoes, Volcom hoodie and West49 flat visor cap, place the latter sideways on your head and get ready to bang your head, for it's the second Overthinking feature in one day and this time we are overthinking CKY's 2000 release, "Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild"
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Let me tell you how I got to this point: Earlier today I was looking through my most played artists in my iLike profile, which goes further back than my last.fm profile, and in this most played artists list I noticed CKY, a hard-rock, skate-punk band from my highschool days when I was mostly jealous of people who could skate than that dude with a 90+ average.

In an instant I was reminded of Viva La Bam, trash-tv at its finest and at the time one my favourite TV shows; of my obsession with all things CKY, including the hook for 96 Quite Bitter Beings, and how all of a sudden I just wasn't in love with CKY anymore; how all of a sudden I was listening to unaccessible, introspective or at least profound music without a clear transition.

So I decided to revisit those days when I didn't quite know myself too well, nor did I seem to want to get to know myself. I decided to give Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild onother go. Before I gave it another listen I decided to check some reviews online to see what people thought of the album. Did people love it as much as I did? Rolling Stone definitely didn't, citing the lyrics and apparent generic sound as the main offenders. But I gave the album a listen anyway, and I realized that Jon Caramanica missed the point.

So, what is the point, exactly? It's the way the band sounds, and the way the album progresses. There are moog synthesizers going off as guitars get piled up ontop of each-other, as drum beats drive the music, and as growls make it all make sense. Every song has a hook; rhythms are used to conjure horror. This is pulp music, a kind of categorization that makes absolutely no sense, but here's what I mean: it is throwaway music, nothing that will change your life in any profound way, but something that you can enjoy for its overwhelming ridiculousness.

The album itself is no more than 33 minutes, and every song follows immediately after its predecessor, making sure that the album never loses momentum, not even when tamed closer Close Yet Far does its thing.

The album is grindhouse cinema: trashy, violent, and ridiculous, but what it does, it does well. For its ability to make you go "holy fuck, that's awesome!" without changing your life in any way shape or form, CKY's best effort so far, Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild is a quick, adernaline filled, worthwhile listen.