Foreskin From the Warlock -- The Strange Fascination With Foreskin 500's Manpussy

How do you take a band called Foreskin 500 seriously?  What happens when it puts out a release called Manpussy?  Well, you put it in the player and are blown away in so many different ways.  That’s when you take it seriously … kind of.  (And as aside, do not do an image search for the band and album unless you are prepared for what you might see.)

From the ashes of Warlock Pinchers, Foreskin 500 made its brief mark on the music world as a hybrid metal/industrial band, allegedly playing its first show with the infamous Pigface.  With three releases (and a few singles) under its belt, my exposure to them came with the 1994 Basura!/Priority Records release mentioned earlier.  I bought it strictly because of the Warlock Pinchers connection.  I kept playing it because it is so good.

After a short intro plays, “Ticket to Hell,” opens the CD with the proverbial bang.  If I raced cars on any kind of level beyond video games, this is the song I’d play right before the race.  It’s a fast, brutal speaker burner that you think would set the tone for the rest of the release, but then “Permatortise” starts and the whole mood changes to something more psychedelic.  It is one of the strangest transitions on a CD I’ve ever heard, but somehow it works.  How?  Sort of the same way John Christopher’s The Little People works – it just does.

The rest of Manpussy follows the same eclectic suit.  You hear an adrenaline pumper like “Highway 69,” and you think you are back on the standard metal/industrial track and then “Kiss Me” happens.  It all makes for a release that is equal part schizophrenic and brilliant composition.  It evokes little in the way of actual emotions, though, but it does get the heart pumping.

Foreskin 500 holds a special place in the music collection of those who are fortunate enough to remember the band.  And while it isn’t like Warlock Pinchers, it is a natural progression from where that band was headed.  I find myself listening to it less these days, but when I do revisit it I enjoy it just as much as I did on the first day I heard it, and there aren’t a lot of releases I can say that about anymore.

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