The Violent Femmes’ sixth album, 1994’s NEW TIMES, features the addition of a new drummer
and is a solid addition to the band’s canon. Opening with the straightforward--for the Femmes, anyway--”
Don’t Start Me on the Liquor,” another Gordon Gano tale of decaying humans set to a jaunty
beat, and a title track vaguely reminiscent of ”The Monster Mash,” the album settles down.The sinister
acoustic guitar base of ”Breaking Up” gives way to a weird, haunted-house organ mid-section.
”4 Seasons” offers a nod to the band’s propulsive, jangling past, complete with Gano’s particularly
strange vocal infl ections. ”Machine” features a theremin in a one-joke song about taking over the
world. Fortunately, it is a good joke. ”Agamemnon” recalls some of the more out-there moments of the
They Might Be Giants catalogue, and ”I Saw You in the Crowd” employs a Beatles-esque riff before
accelerating into a scale-climbing middle section. The album ends on the more bleakly toned ”Jesus of
Rio,” an odd combination of Gano’s personal failures, religious sentiments, and political statements.


Tracklist:
1. Don’t Start Me On The Liquor (4:07)
2. New Times (4:07)
3. Breakin’ Up (4:01)
4. Key Of 2 (3:31)
5. 4 Seasons (3:07)
6. Machine (4:39)
7. I’m Nothing (2:35)
8. When Everybody’s Happy (3:36)
9. Agamemnon (2:56)
10. This Island Life (5:31)
11. I Saw You In The Crowd (4:07)
12. Mirror Mirror (I See A Damsel) (4:30)
13. Jesus Of Rio (3:35)