East River Pipe

East River Pipe

What Are You On?

[5/5] Fifteen years into his “other” career as a one-man band, F.M. Cornog (a.k.a. East River Pipe) is still punching the clock at a New Jersey Home Depot. Not surprisingly, he’s obsessed with drugs throughout his sixth album, from pot (“Druglife”) to meth (“Crystal Queen”) to Prozac (“What Are You On?”). Evidently that’s what it takes to get through life in Jersey, and with enough here to float a pharmacy, What Are You On? sweats poison out of every pore. It’s the soundtrack to a world where God tells his slaves, “Shut up and row/you stupid fucks,” and though the music is gentler and more acoustic-guitar-driven than usual, the words are as bleak as ever, and the songs still cut like coal-black shards of anti-pop bitterness.
(MERGE) Kenny Berkowitz

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