The Foetus Symphony Orchestra Featuring Lydia Lunch: York

Jim Thirlwell (aka Foetus) has pretty much ceased to surprise, since he's been riding the same nihilist train since the early '80s. The sense of despair expands geometrically throughout York, a concept album about New York's most dangerous section: the area under the Brooklyn Bridge, home of the Farragut Housing Projects next to which, the liner notes boast, Thirlwell has lived for some time. This incarnation of Foetus includes Thirlwell and a band of New York scenesters, including past collaborator Lydia Lunch and members of Swans, Pussy Galore, Lounge Lizards, Cop Shoot Cop and more. During the course of York, they lay down a heavy, dark sound over which Lunch delivers monologues about the filthy state of that corner of the world. The album is well executed, but it's not all that impressive to hear Thirlwell wail like a maniac and Lunch say "hard-on" or "cock" for the umpteenth time. Nor is it impressive to hear what boils down to a cry for street cred, a statement that says little more than, "Hey, we've been to a dangerous place!" York is a fair listen, but isn't it time Thirlwell either offered some new insights or hung up his microphone in exchange for the lucrative ex-radical university lecture circuit