In Glorious Times [U.S. Import]

Performance art, art rock, experimental rock, heavy metal - all are styles of music that have been used to explain one of the more hard to explain bands in all of rock, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Some critics have compared the band - which hails from Oakland, CA - to one of the quirkiest bands of all time, Mr. Bungle, and they may have a point (after all, like Bungle, SGM are not opposed to any musical style, and one of their albums was originally released by a label run by an ex-Bungle member, Trey Spruance). Strange costumes, makeup, and instruments that are both traditional and homemade turn out to be some of the key ingredients to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who have built a sizable cult following along the way.

In Glorious Tomes is the quintet's fourth studio album, released by Avant/Experimental Metal label 'The End Records'.

In Glorious Times' second song, "Helpless Corpses Enactment," is either straight-ahead death metal, complete with Cookie Monster growls, or an utterly straight-faced parody of same; the fact that it's well-nigh impossible to tell one way or the other pretty much sums up Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The Oakland quintet's fourth studio album maintains all the oddball humor, technical complexity, jarring dissonance and mindbending dynamic shifts of their previous albums, not to mention their proud inability to sound like the same band from one song to the next. For example, the song directly following the aforementioned slab of death metal is the slightly pompous "Puppet Show," with passages that come close to actually quoting from familiar parts of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and straight after that, "Formicary" is almost a pop song and "Angle of Repose," sung by violinist Carla Kihlstedt, sounds like it could be an outtake from Björk's Volta. That head-snapping eclecticism is the band's stock in trade, alongside the King Crimson-like blend of metallic aggression, artsy dissonance and flashy chops that's the throughline for all these disparate styles. So basically, those who liked Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's previous albums will love In Glorious Times, which may well be the band's most diverse and accomplished set so far, but those who prefer their bands to sound at all musically consistent will likely be annoyed. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide