With a music collection the size of Rhode Island (or at least a small city) like I have, it is inevitable that some things will gather dust. Some things will even be removed at some point to make room for others in a cramped storage case, and may wind up stuck in a box in the closet that gets forgotten about for years.
Most often, when coming upon that box again, the contents are nothing more than a mildly humorous snapshot of your life at the time, but once in a while a little nugget of goodness is found hidden inside. That’s the case with Pop Will Eat Itself’s Dos Dedos Mis Amigos, which was originally released on Sept. 19, 1994.
This is music that screams “mid-’90s!” at me, but it’s actually weathered the age quite well. I spent a good deal of that era listening to Dos Dedos Mis Amigos, and reflected in the music is my love of industrial back then – like nearly everyone else who kept up with trends in music.
Pop Will Eat Itself issued this album, along with an EP with a few remixes (called Amalgamation) in 1994 on Trent Reznor’s label, Nothing. As can be expected, Reznor’s touch shows up in the heavily digital-sounding guitar lines that he made so popular with Nine Inch Nails.
Prior to this album, Pop Will Eat Itself was really more of a hard-edged dance-pop unit, churning out catchy, bubblegum-industrial as a reaction to the “scary” industrial of acts like Skinny Puppy. While Dos Dedos Mis Amigos was self-produced, it is clear that Reznor offered some advice on How To Be Industrial Like Me, advice he also offered up around the same to fledging label-mate Marilyn Manson.
There’s nothing deep going on here, save for an ode to open-mindedness toward those unlike yourself (“Ich Bin Ein Auslander”) but, to this day, the album succeeds by focusing on catchy, driving anthems. It has aged much better than most music of the period, probably because Pop Will Eat Itself kept an emphasis on a heavy, simple, but infectious beat. The general sound is big, bold, brash, but bouncy – a bunch of ‘b’s that make for a good time in the right proportions.
If there’s a slow moment on Dos Dedos Mis Amigos, it’s closing number “Babylon,” but by that time you’ve probably had enough fun anyway. Tell me “Kick to Kill” doesn’t get under your skin. I won’t believe you.
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I’ve been listening to this album for the past few weeks also after it gathered dust for years in my box.