My Foolish Halo -- Piaphabakrist

Piaphabakrist is another one of those decent mid-nineties Harmless Records releases that add a sense of depth to one's record collection. For some punks, of course, the more obscure a record the greater the amount of credibility he or she could boast in the scene and owning a copy of My Foolish Halo's lone release, I suspect, could help someone hoping to achieve Punker-Than-Thou status impress a friend or two.

This is not, of course, to say that Piaphabakrist is an especially bad record. If anything, I'd say it's pretty agreeable to the ears. It just lacks the sort of standout tracks one would expect from a distortion-heavy outfit such as, say, Teengenerate or Scared of Chaka. In the end, the disk is merely good but not memorable.

The first track, "Coming Down," in my opinion is really the strongest song on the record. With uncommonly soulful vocals, "Coming Down" balances just the right amount of melody and fuzz to fashion a song I wouldn't mind hearing featured as a "deep cut" on some pre-satellite radio punk show. . .

The remainder of the disk, however, doesn't quite distinguish itself as particularly original in any way and, while each of the tracks are solid enough, the end result is barely more than a collection of halfway decent punk songs. There is a sense of barely restrained frenzy that occasionally punctuates the songs, lending the record an admirably energetic sound but, unfortunately, the listener is left with the distinct impression that My Foolish Halo could have been a really good band had they only had the chance to develop. As it stands, however, Piaphakrist is a good illustration of the distorted garage punk sound so prevalent some ten to fifteen years ago but, then again, so are dozens of other disks from the era. Still, this is a listenable disk, if not one one would put on repeat (forgetting for the moment that it is a 7" vinyl record and not a CD).

Sobriquet Grade: 75 (C).