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REVIEWS:

S/T

No. 6, 1996

Trouser Press

After St. Johnny broke up at the end of 1995, Whitten launched a new band, Grand Mal, with a mostly solo fuzz-rock EP. The tone of the self-titled six-song EP is encouragingly aggressive, thanks to Whitten's rediscovery of the power of punctuating disjointed feedback bursts and a few forays into dance culture (à la Primal Scream) buoyed by the soulful belting of Carmen Quinones.

 

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Pleasure Is No Fun

No. 6, 1997

New York Press
March 4-10, 1998 v11, N9

Bill Whitten did great early-90's work with St. Johnny, and he's at it again with Grand Mal, whose sensational Pleasure Is No Fun CD was one of last year's best. Whitten's strengths with his band are pretty much the same as they were in St. Johnny: huge, bludgeoning hard-rock guitar nicely embellished by alienated-youth lyrics and indie-styled vocals. It's a tough combination to beat, and Whitten's songwriting skills are so sharp that even the slow ones swing clear across the room and back.