Friday Full-Length: Fu Manchu, Signs of Infinite Power
It might not be improper to think of Signs of Infinite Power as a sequel to 2007’s We Must Obey (discussed here), seeing as how the lineup is consistent, two records comprise the entirety of the band’s Century Media era and are distinct from the rest of their catalog for the more aggressive side of their sound captured by producer Sergio Chavez, while Andrew Alekel (who produced the album before) mixed. Signs of Infinite Power, which was released on Oct. 20, 2009 — it was covered here when this site was just a little baby obbylisk; barely a nubbin — doesn’t carry the same kind of tonal thickness as its predecessor, but might be meaner on balance with songs like “Steel.Beast.Defeated,” “El Busta,” “Webfoot Witch Hat,” the title-track and opener “Bionic Astronautics” setting the mood.
Of course, this is Fu Manchu‘s 10th album (depending on how you keep count), and it also marks the second time in their career they put out three full-lengths featuring the same lineup. Here, that’s founding guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, lead guitarist Bob Balch, bassist Brad Davis and drummer Scott Reeder, the latter of whom came aboard ahead of 2003’s live album, Go for It…Live! (review here) and made his studio debut with 2004’s subsequent Start the Machine (discussed here). Signs of Infinite Power was also Fu Manchu‘s goodbye to the aughts, which as a decade weren’t as productive as the 1990s — five records between ’94-’99 and four between ’02-’09 — but featured crucial stylistic growth and were pivotal for the longterm sustainability of the band. Nailing down the personnel making the music, duh, was an essential part of this. Being on that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 soundtrack helped too.
As the opener, “Bionic Astronautics” does a fair amount of work in telling the listener what they need to know going in. The midpoint dig-in behind the line, “You worship what you fear,” calls back to the density of the LP before, and that’s an important part of Signs of Infinite Power‘s personality — I ain’t knocking it — while finding a rawer take for their signature fuzz riffing. “Steel.Beast.Defeated” follows and is a typical rhythmic patterning, driven both for momentum coming from the leadoff and moving deeper into the record. When Fu Manchu put out The Return of Tomorrow (review here) in 2024, Hill noted the early single “Hands of the Zodiac” was lyrically inspired by an astrologer friend of long standing who apparently had a thing for saying wacky one-liners. “Steel.Beast.Defeated” and “Webfoot Witch Hat” here could have been similarly sourced, if they weren’t.
But if you’re looking for consistency among Fu Manchu‘s catalog, you don’t have to look far. In 2009, the band were 15 years removed from their debut album, and wanting neither for craft or purpose. They’d grown in some ways beyond their punk/hardcore roots, but more into their own aesthetic as a forerunner of heavy, fuzzed-out rock and roll, an alternative to the chestbeating of the heavy metal or the pop-emo that had infiltrated the punk of the time, but speaking to various sides within various genres with a solid identity conveyed through their songs. You could feasibly argue that by 1996-’97, Fu Manchu knew who they were in terms of sound and what they wanted their material to do. Skate rock for SoCal surfers. Stoner rock for an emergent next generation heavy heads. I find I’m more into Signs of Infinite Power now than when it came out. The songs have aged well and it feels liberated from expectation of what it might lead to in terms of their sound.
Because Signs of Infinite Power worked. We Must Obey worked. But taken together, the two feel like they’re pushing into a side of Fu Manchu‘s sound that they explore fully, and that of course is the aggro. They were heavy before, and they were heavy after, but they were never before or after heavy quite in the same way they were here. It’s not all furies, with slick rollers like “Eyes x 10,” or the start-stop reachout and subtle chorus melody of the penultimate “Take it Away,” but much of the funk that drummer Brant Bjork (who by this time was well into his solo career) helped bring to their sound was taken out of focus, and replaced with a more direct, on-the-beat thrust. Accordingly, amid the shred of “El Busta” and the still-hardcore two-minute closer “One Step Too Far,” a slowdown like that in “Bionic Astronautics” emphasizes that Fu Manchu, even on a mission as they seemed to be, were dynamic.
“Signs of Infinite Power” stands among the finer nods Fu Manchu have ever set forth, but as one familiar with their work would invariably expect, hooks are prevalent throughout. Some 17 years later, I’m still not sure what’s going on with “Webfoot Witch Hat” on a thematic level, but it’s memorable, and the chug and bombast of “Gargantuan March” is appreciable for being maybe as far into lumber as Fu Manchu would to-date get. They’re not a band known for extremes — that is to say they’re not an extreme heavy/metal band; their songs are accessible and they were punker kids — but Signs of Infinite Power sees them pushing themselves in what for them was still a new direction, answering the promise of We Must Obey in a manner not dissimilar from how 1997’s The Action is Go (discussed here) carried forward ideas from In Search Of… (discussed here), complementing what they’d done in the past while seeking less familiar ground.
So the last remaining question is was this really as far into charge as the band could get? By the time they were following this, the culture around heavy rock and roll — and much else — had changed owing to the increased mobilization of the internet as a means of disseminating and distributing music, and Fu Manchu would embrace a maturity that encompassed multiple facets of their style, taking their place as an influence in a word-of-mouth-fueled heavy underground. This album and this era aren’t and probably won’t ever be the band’s most widely lauded, but both on the level of the songs they were crafting and the execution they fostered during these years, it remains something special within the discography and without.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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It feels earlier than it is, coming on 11AM. That’s likely because I was out last night at that Clutch/C.O.C. show that apparently all of New Jersey decided also to hit up. Good for the bands, bad for finding a place in the venue to be. For me, anyhow. Plenty of people did just fine.
Running late means I’m on borrowed time. Coming on noon now, for example, and I know exactly where the last hour went: to the park, so The Pecan could practice riding her bike on hills. I try to remind myself that these are the actual fleeting moments, and that the writing that feels so urgent in my head and habit will still be there afterward.
Monday is a Buzzard premiere. There’s more after that but I don’t know what off the top of my head. That Kal-El review is hanging over me in a way I don’t enjoy and feel like is holding me back from other stuff, so I’m not sure what I’ll do about that, but I hope to resolve the issue by either writing about it or choosing to not by next Friday. Oh, there’s a premiere in there for Occult Hand Order from France, whose record is pretty good.
Quick Zelda update: I beat Wind Waker again. Still fun. I had mods/cheats for infinite magic, arrows and bombs, had the whole map from the start and enough hearts so that I didn’t need to do minigames or chase heart pieces I didn’t want to. A lot of that era of gaming was about prolonging the experience, and some of it’s fun and some is tedious. I really like the look, mood and controls of that game though, better than Twilight Princess, which I’ve yet to play a second time, or Ocarina of Time 3D, much as I enjoyed revisiting that. I guess I’m not a huge fan of super-long dungeons. The Twilight Princess ones were like a multi-day project. I started a new game in Echoes of Wisdom yesterday, might dig into that again because it’s fun as hell, but there are a couple in-world things I want to do in Wind Waker as well, so we’ll see what if anything next week brings.
I have homework over the weekend for Hungarian class(es) and more writing besides, so I’ll be on the laptop if you’re looking to get in touch. Unless you’re a nazi piece of shit warmongering scumbag, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Should the caveat apply, do the world a favor and fall in a hole forever. Everyone else, thanks for reading.
FRM.
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Tags: California, Century Media, Fu Manchu, Fu Manchu Signs of Infinite Power, San Clemente, Signs of Infinite Power
Please do that Kal-El review dude, the album is soooo good! I’m eager to know what you think of it ???