CFM ‘Dichotomy Desaturated’

Words by Russell Carstens

Unaware that half-baked fragments of Sebadoh-esque folk have no business standing side-by-side with a witch’s brew of stoner metal, California native Charles Moothart’s (CFM) endearing disregard for norms is much to the listener’s delight on Dichotomy Desaturated. Ignorance is bliss indeed when The Stooges meet math rock, with a dash of Minutemen start-stop rhythms, plus a dose of Blue Cheer.

In places, Moothart’s guitar work is the aural equivalent of a desert mirage formed by sweltering heat rising off sidewalks. The larger-than-life “Dead Weight” is the album’s highlight, sounding like one of those cheesy mass-simultaneous public guitar jams, except it’s being played by thousands of freshly-risen evil dead. If one repeated “Bloody Mary” into the mirror and something supernatural did happen, “Message From The Mirror” would be an appropriate score.

Maybe Moothart’s father was a metalhead, and his mother was a punk, and Charles developed a fondness for blues in his youth. Whatever’s in his musical DNA, Dichotomy Desaturated is the freewheeling soundtrack to a denim-clad burnout teen’s daydream being violently interrupted by a tornado.