DRAMA PIT AND LOAN CD/LP REVIEWS

Head Heritage Album of the Month, Jan 2004 www.headheritage.com
Julian Cope

"Immediately this motherfucker dropped on to the stereo, I knew I was in the presence of True Heads with One Eye fixed on the lunations of the heavens. That the album etched its way directly into my brain on first hearing is startling, for I listen to shitloads of new stuff and mainly wait for their turgid meandering self-obsessions to struggle to locate any dignified conclusion. And after the deep art-rock invention of Terminal Lovers, most of the so-called stoner rock gathering in their masses is just so much novelty compost."
Read the full Drama Pit & Loan Overview

Tangerine Magazine www.tangerinemagazine.com
Glenn Tillman

"This is not like any CD Shifty Records has sent me to review in the past. More melodic, more traditionally structured, but in some other ways more twisted and perverse. These songs are like rock anthems gone horribly wrong, pop songs from hell, or music that hopelessly bent kids on acid might listen to in one of those bizarre flashback sequences in a David Lynch movie. That's my way of heaping enormous praise on this CD. The melodies are all enough off center to question the sanity of the songwriter, the playing is desperate and deranged, and the lyrics are downright psychopathic, full of paranoid thoughts, neurotic obsessions, murder, suicide, and totally weird symbolic imagery. This is so strange it changes the synapses in your brain with repeated listens. The vocals sound like Dr. John on peyote and the subject material and lyrical twists and turns would confound and confuse Roky Erickson. This is rock music creativity at its bravest. Rock music played at the furthest outposts of the musical twilight zone. Any song with lyrics that start with "My true colors darken and dance in this garden of throats" is gonna satisfy even the most dedicated Captain Beefheart da da rocker's quest for the unusual. Fascinatingly brilliant."

Daredevil Magazinewww.daredevil.de

"Now here is some really different rock and roll right here, this is certainly not your typical stoner stuff nor is it something to listen to as background music, cause there is a lot going on here.  Terminal Lovers is a project that is lead by Dave Cintron and he's got together an all star cast of players to play different instruments on this record and the end result is diverse and totally awesome.  First of all the songs, don't follow any set pattern, this is one of the most varied rock records I've heard in awhile.  You've got some driving jams, like "Darkest Hour" and "Polar Sun", that are full throttle rockers that contain a raw energy and are jam packed with melodic, pissed vocals and heavy riffs and then they pull off a 10 minute+ epic like "Rising Tide" that runs a gamut from gentle, quiet moments to some double bass drum parts and a finish that descends into electronic sounding drumbeats.  I mean, not one song on the entire album sounds like the one that came before it and that is a great thing for certain.  Great vocals throughout the entire album too, they vary a lot but it's a really subtle, and cool variation and the musicianship is extremely tight.    This is a great disc, that I think will appeal to a wide variety of tastes.  It's a little bit psychedelic, classic rock, stoner, metal and even a little bit poppy at times (but not in a bad way!) and the sound comes together great.  I highly recommend you check this one out, but close minded bastards need not apply.  Rock!!!"

Cleveland Free Times www.freetimes.com
Jeff Neisel

“ It’s easy to see why Cobra Verde enlisted Dave Cintron to fill in for J. Mascis, Cintron plays with the same reckless emotion that’s rooted in the ragged glory days of Neil Young. Simply put, Cintron shreds and this album, a reissure of a disc released 2 years ago, sounds as potent today as it did when it first came out.
Remixed and expanded to include an extra 20 minutes of music and a bonus video, the new and improved Drama Pit also comes with fresh artwork - what looks like an about-to-explode mechanical head. It’s a fitting cover for an album that includes stoner anti-anthems, guitar acrobatics designed to please the most discriminating head banger and trippy freak outs. Cintron, who also plays in Speaker/Cranker, will hopefully get the extra exposure he deserves from this release.”

Stonerrock.comwww.stonerrock.com
Rob Wrong

"I am not entirely sure what to think about this CD...Terminal Lovers are definitely psychedelic guitar rock, but most of the time it is a bit more than just that. This has a really nicely done production that is layered and slick and seems to be almost built into their whole overall sound.
Talk about your eclectic musical tastes. 'Terminal Lovers' are obviously veteran musicians that all have serious chops. The intro track on the album sets an almost misleading pace at first by demonstrating just how good those guitar chops are with an Judas Priest/Iron Maiden almost approach and viscous heavy attack. At other times these guys get as melodic and hard rock/pop as Big Elf...Definitely a strange breed of animal all in itself if you know what I mean.
Not that the whole album is pop rock/metal either, there is plenty of almost acid rock jams along with the meticulous intricately done song writing... Mostly though, Terminal Lovers like to throw in super heavy psychedelic songs in there that are trance and weird. Lots of variety including acoustic styled numbers and busy bass reminding me of late 70's Floyd, Velvet Underground and even the mellower Monster Magnet stuff at times.
These guys are very similar to Monster Magnet (for a lack of better comparison) as far as getting really poppy back to back with 'heavy', but make no mistake- these guys have their own style and do it well. Fans of Gallery of Mites might dig on this equally because of the songwriting style. Get this one if you like everything psychedelic and guitar heavy. Nicely done record that will get played a lot around here...tasty."

DRAMA PIT CD-R REVIEWS

Columbus Alive www.columbusalive.com
Paul Bearer

"Of related interest: The Downside Special, Pere Ubu, Prisnoshake
Cleveland native Dave Cintron, the main creative force behind Terminal Lovers, has honed his considerable talents in several seminal Forest City rock outifts, most recently the truly amazing Downside Special. After the demise of that band, Cintron assembled ex-members of legendary groups like Pere Ubu, Prisonshake and Spike In Vein to form Terminal Lovers.
Cintron writes, sings and plays guitar on the disc's vastly divergent seven cuts. It's a heady melange of tastes and styles that, though rooted in traditional rock, gets, shall we say, a little out there. Opening track Darkest Hour is a mid-tempo rocker that highlights Cintron's considerable six-string skills as well as his desperation-soaked vocals. When hi bemoans that it's his darkest hour, you can feel his pain. From there the cuts go in different directions. Rising Tide borders on experimental. Polar Son broods and meanders while cuts like She Delivers and Stella possess the attributes to satisfy traditional rock purists like Bearere, most notably the blistering lead guitar playing.
It's hard to pinpoint influences on this CD, but I cna say in all regards that Cintron is a uniquely talented cat and Drama Pit is a vastly enjoyable disc.

Cleveland Free Times www.freetimes.com
Ron Kretsch

“All who've spent more than five minutes in Cleveland's underground rock scene have encountered Dave Cintron, whose signature style — a playful obeisance to "70's dude-rock grafted onto the loopiness of Lemmy-era Hawkwind — is unmistakeable. Drama Pit marks a return to songwriting form for Cintron, who's been MIA since the dissolution of The Downside Special (though he's played keyboards in the improv-orinted Speaker/Cranker), and little has changed in the interim. His guitar playing, as ever, jerks from feral crunch into startlingly lovely meanderings at the drop of a microdot: his bizarre lyrics (is Straight Pipe Solution about drugs, assault or fucking?) are still rendered in a gutteral warble. As his fellow travelers here are culled from the ranks of Breaker and Pere Ubu, the band is super-solid despite its newness.
It's not a nostalgia trip for scene vets either: it makes me look forward to further developments, as well as feel glad to have Dave back in the game. ”

ARTICLES/QUOTES

The Village Voicewww.villagevoice.com
Chuck Eddy

“.......guitar genius Dave Cintron’s mini-supergroup acid rocks squarely in the chaotic Cuyahoga axe-drone tradition, though now and then you might hear Funhouse filtered through the Birthday Party and/or Get Your Wings.....”

The Village Voice
Chuck Eddy

Eddytor's Dozen, February 8th, 2005
Despite all sounding hefty enough to justify their amorphousness, none of the vociferously repetition-worshipping acts boosted below made Spin's "62 Mostly Ignorable Up-and-Coming Bands With Enviable Publicity Budgets, Some of Whom Even Wear Expensive Suits and You Can Kinda Sorta Dance to Them" issue. Not that I'm implying a conspiracy—riffs that could unclog your sewage line at 30 paces churned over and over again until next week clearly ain't for everybody. Those impressionable young readers do miss out, though.

• AQUI
  The First Trip Out
  (Ace Fu miniaturist noise-prog album)
• CIRCLE
  Guillotine
  (Scratch Finnish psychedelic drone-rock album)
• DMBQ
  The Essential Sounds From the Far East
  (Estrus Japanese butthole-surfed psychedelic rock album)
• MICHAEL JAMES/CHILDREN OF THE RISK
  Solution X
  (Empath acid-punk album)
• JESU
  Jesu
  (Hydrahead Industries doom-droned ambient thrash album)
• MY WAY MY LOVE
  Hypnotic Suggestion: 01
  (File 13 Japanese noise-rock album)
• OM
  Variating on a Theme
  (Holy Mountain two-men-making-three-songs-last-46-minutes epic guitarless doom-metal album)
• ONEIDA
  Nice./Splittin' Peaches
  (Ace Fu psychedelic drone-rock EP)
• TERMINAL LOVERS
  Drama Pit and Loan
  (Shifty/My Mind's Eye acid-punk album)
• TUSSLE
  Kling-Klang
  (Troubleman Unlimited dub-danced instrumental kraut-rock-revival album)
• DAVE UNGER
  "Rock on Baby Through the American Night"
  (rockmedia.us 20-minute noise-droned acid-rock CD-R single)
• WE ACEDIASTS
  Pre Acediasts
  (Meshkey Japanese psychedelic drone-dance EP)
  

Time Out New York www.timeoutny.com

“Another band from Cleveland that gets it...If only we had more bands like this in New York – interested in the art of rock, rather than rock fashion.”

Columbus Alive

"The Terminal Lovers are the brainchild of Dave Cintron, one-time singer/songwriter/guitarist for the Cleveland-based Downside Special. The D.S. was an intelligent, yet highly visceral guitar-driven rock band. Cintron eventually resurfaced with the Terminal Lovers, taking the tunes intended for Downside's sophomore effort for the Lovers' debut CD, Drama Pit.
Mainly a studio endeavor, Terminal Lovers rarely play live; when they do, they employ a revolving cast of Cleveland musical luminaries. For this Cintron is supported by Steve Mehlman (Pere Ubu) on drums, Chris Smith (Keelhaul) on guitar and Don Depew (Cobra Verde, Guided By Voices) on bass.
Cintron's songs fuse a myriad styles into a unified amalgam. At times resembling the Butthole Surfers and, at others, the Stooges, the common thread is Cintron's inspired fret work and soaring vocals, both of which impart desperation and hope."

Assholier Than Thou www.wcsb.org
Chris Klasa

It's a Cleveland thing. You wouldn't understand. Hell, I am the poet laureate of Lakewood, OH and I am not sure that I understand.
As far as I can tell, Cleveland has always had this art rock fixation going since the Velvet Underground were playing little bars in Cleveland in the sixties and pretty much no place else except Andy Warhol's BBQs. There has always been this instinct to get weird with the bands here. Look at the Electric Eels or the Mirrors or the Styrenes or Pere Ubu. Those bands were called punk rock for a lack of a better description but, basically, they were just weird art damaged rock music. So, there is that. And then there is fact that Cleveland is just one huge suburb. Remember that Peter "Ain't it Fun" Laughner is from Bay Village, OH and that place is about as suburban as gets. With the suburbs comes garages and cars and driving around blasting AC/DC and Van Halen and this whole subculture of Parma, OH metalheads making music for each other to drive their big assed American cars to. Music that the rest of the world is not understanding.
Those are the two forces at work with the Terminal lovers or as the Free Times put it: "A playful obeisance to 70s dude-rock grafted onto the loopiness of Lemmy-era Hawkwind". It is rocking and weird. That's the best I can do as far as describing this record. StonerRock.com tried it this way: "These guys are very similar to Monster Magnet (for a lack of better comparison) as far as getting really poppy back to back with 'heavy', but make no mistake- these guys have their own style and do it well." Pretty much the same thing. There are songs on "Drama Pit and Loan" like "Rising Tide" that break down into almost five minutes of near-electronica styled raga and jams like "Tulips" that just straight up rip.
Almost as interesting as the record, is the cast of characters who make up the Terminal Lovers. The list of bands that each of these guys have been in is a mile long. Lead by guitarist and noted visual artist, Dave Cintron (ex- dimbulb, the Downside Special and Quazimodo, currently providing lead guitar for Cobra Verde and electronics for Speaker/Cranker), the band features bassist Don Depew (ex-Breaker, Cobra Verde and Guided by Voices) percussionist Steve Mehlman (currently of Pere Ubu and Rocket from the Tombs), guitarist Chris Smith (ex-Integrity, False Hope and Asphalt, currently in Keelhaul) and drummer Scott Pickering (in every band in Cleveland - ever, most notably Prisonshake and My Dad is Dead). If you are blessed by God and live in Cleveland, Pere Ubu's Jim Jones plays with the Terminal Lovers live too.
Columbus Alive was on point with this commentary regarding the Terminal Lovers: "Cintron's songs fuse a myriad of styles into a unified amalgam. At times resembling the Butthole Surfers and, at others, the Stooges, the common thread is Cintron's inspired fret work and soaring vocals, both of which impart both desperation and hope."
Desperation and hope sums the whole thing up nicely.
It's Cleveland. It's art. It rocks.