Thursday, 19 February 2026

Alien Sex Fiend - Who's Been Sleeping In My Brain

The title of the album, songs with names like "I'm Her Frankenstein" and "Wish I Woz a Dog," the utterly demented look of Nik Fiend in full make-up and regalia, not to mention the rest of his bandmates; the Alien Sex Fiend ethos was set from the start, in all its wiggy glory. Sometimes the sheer wackiness obscured the fact, though, that Alien Sex Fiend offered great music along with the humour, always the distinction between the truly great comedy bands and the ones that are just a bad joke to begin with. While not pretending to be pushing the cutting edge of music, Brain was still a great combination of punk's snarl, glam's giddiness, campily dramatic theatricality equal parts Alice Cooper and the Damned, and not a little bit of envelope-pushing with the band's extensive use of drum machines alongside Johnnie Ha-Ha. With Mrs. Fiend pulling a bit of a Ray Manzarek on keyboards and bass sounds, and Yaxi kicking up the guitar dust, all Nik needed to do was wrap his electrocuted-Cockney singing around it all, and the rest was genius; however, Youth provided the finishing touches as a producer, balancing crispness with just enough echo and murkiness to satisfy all sides. To its further credit, Brain wasn't just one tune repeated over and again; while Alien Sex Fiend aren't exactly ever going to be known for ballads, the rumbling Burundi-into-'50s raunch of "Wild Women" isn't the pulsing pagan psychosis of "New Christian Music," which in turn isn't the anthemic, heroic surge of "Ignore the Machine," and so forth. Though arguably Alien Sex Fiend has never really moved beyond the bounds of what it set on Brain, what the band did come up with was more than great then and now.

I can't believe that it has taken me this long to get some Alien Sex Fiend up on the blog...

Ripped from the 2015 expanded box set to uncompromising MP3 @ 320kbps

Alien Sex Fiend; Who’s Been Sleeping In My Brain

1.      Wish I Woz A Dog
2.      Wild Women
3.      I’m Not Mad
4.      New Christian Music
5.      Wigwam Wipe Out
6.      I’m Her Frankenstein
7.      I Am A Product
8.      Ignore The Machine
9.      Lips Can’t Go
10.   Black Rabbit
11.   Under The Thumb (Ignore The Dub)
12.   30 Second Coma
13.   R.I.P. (Blue Crumb Truck)
14.   New Christian Music (Single Version)

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoy reading your posts. Although I have a lot of the things you write about I'm still interested to see what you have to say.

    'Who's Been Sleeping..." is a great album and there were some excellent mixes and b-sides at the time too. 'There's A Gurl..." for instance. Having said all that I think the follow-up album 'Acid Bath' is even stronger and as for 'Boneshaker Baby', wow!

    Keep up the good work. I often mean to comment but I have to open a different browser to do so, so often don't get round to it.

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    1. Thanks for your comment Anon. It's rewarding to know that people actually read the drivel that gets published here. My first introduction to T'Fiend was There's A Gurl... which still ranks as a fucking classic!
      What is it they say about old goths? Oh yeah, It's Just A Phase!!

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