Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Post Historic Monsters (1993)

For the band's fourth album in as many years, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine takes a darker and more fed-up tone than before. Where albums like 1992: The Love Album or 101 Damnations had been more overtly tongue in cheek, there's a new kind of directness and even a little bitterness on display on Post Historic Monsters. The acoustic folk of "Suicide Isn't Painless" is a direct slam against Manic Street Preachers and the way lead singer Richey James would exploit his own mental illness for publicity, and "Lenny and Terence" takes dead aim at Lenny Kravitz and Terence Trent D'Arby for their obsession with musical styles of the past. The songs are basically straight-up dance rock with punkish, distorted guitar over chattering beats, with the lounge-y "Being There" the main exception. A solid but somewhat hectoring album, Post Historic Monsters is a bit wearying to listen to.