There is something to be said about an album cover that makes you want to throw up on first glimpse. This was my initial reaction to Gibby Haynes and His Problem’s latest self-titled release for Surfdog Records, an LP whose cover art simply consists of an odd-shaped face covered in beads that slightly resemble hundreds of warts. (Just describing it gives me the heebee-jeebees.) Even after the disc sat on my coffee table for over a week, I still get a little shiver every time I look at it.
So, does this pimply figure speak volumes about how the record sounds? Not at all. Gibby, most famous for songs like “Jesus Built My Hotrod,” and “Pepper,” with his outfit the Butthole Surfers, goes a little mellower this time around. Never losing his trademark trailer park register, Gibby sings about a super man who says everything is “super, man,” while buying weed from Dan Rather, and his own role as a Kaiser while his partner wears diapers. Silly rhyming aside, it all sounds as if Gibby may have tripped the light fantastic with Jimmy Buffet and came back with a whole new perspective on neo-alternative rock.
All though slow and droning at times, Gibby still has something appealing about him. Whether it is his knack for songs about everyday bullshit or his desire to fill tracks with the weirdest sound effects possible, he still manages to pull off a pretty entertaining album. Now, if the eyes on the cover of Gibby’s record would quit following me around like a creepy painting in an old episode of Scooby Doo, I might be able to sleep tonight.
