Cutting away some of their kitsch tendencies, Man or Astro-man? turned in a tough, muscular ninth album with Made From Technetium. The surf and spy influences have been de-emphasized in favor of a harder approach that still reverberates with pop-culture references. The difference results in a record that remains raw and invigorating, even when the group runs out of memorable riffs.
By the time they released Made from Technetium in 1997, Man or Astro-Man? had been releasing records prolifically since 1993, most displaying a reverence for '60s surf music and irreverent intergalactic shtick. The four Alabamans--Birdstuff, Star Crunch, Coco, and Dexter X--sound more like Sonic Youth than the Surfaris on Technetium, though they haven't let down their space-age aesthetic a bit. Titles such as "Structo (Mr. Microphone Mixup)" and "Theoretical Sounds of Slow Motion" contain grungy Batman guitar, feisty two-beat drumming, and vocal snippets from cheesy science-fiction movies, junior high science-class films, instructional tapes, and other odd sources. Elemental Astro-Man. --James Rotondi
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