Before any character with the initials M.M. entered the entertainment consciousness, there was this little band from Seattle who so happened to incorporate more than a handful of seedy elements into their industrial-metallized musical base. The Pleasure Elite, a collective of S&M junkies, offered listeners a much more adult version of shock rock and more importantly, they really weren't all that bad.

Bad Juju actually received a couple pressings. This version being used for the review is the self released copy that contains more tracks (most of which are spoken word and found-sound type of interludes between the songs) and a different sequencing. The version released in 1994 on Red Light Records is perhaps a bit more concise, but this version seems to be the one the band perhaps originally meant to see the light of day.

The Pleasure Elite's sound was nothing particularly earth-shaking, but it was nonetheless very enjoyable. The band featured an abundance of rhythmic riffing, fairly straightfoward song pacing and the slightly disturbed vocals of The Rev V. Blast. The lyrics often take on very twisted subjects (particularly the bouncy, hoppy "Twist on This", which is a little ditty about a social predator freshly released from a mental institution) as well as a touch of a social conscience ("Media Feed"). The band also knows how to place good hooks in the songs to keep them catchy for the listener. Perhaps the eventual collapse of Red Light Records kept this band from achieving more attention on a larger level because many less talented and amusing bands have found more success than The Pleasure Elite.

Although there are moments where Bad Juju bogs down a bit, it is a very decent album that should appeal to those with a slightly skewed sense of humor. It manages to cover shock-rock topics without being a complete joke and moreover, it's a fun little album.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 03/2002

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This could easily be entitled Perversion Made Fun & Easy, by the Pleasure Elite. If the rather sketchy cover art doesn't warp you, then the music contained within will. The Pleasure Elite has been bumping and grinding around the Seattle scene for over a decade now and except maybe a need for rain slickers, doesn't really have much in common with any band in that area. Employing a ton of influences and stylistic variations from metal, punk, industrial, hip-hop, and country, the Pleasure Elite manages to pull everything together in their second longplayer. While in the past they tended to break up the songs with twisted spoken word bits, this time around they have collected some of the most bizarre and wacky samples to act as between-song fillers. The song themselves are a nice step up from Bad Juju, which lacked a solid songwriting effort completely through. As usual, there are the upbeat ditties of perversion that will guarantee to please ("Smoking in Bed", the anthemic sing-along "Babies Need More Air" or the country-tinged and incredibly bouncy "Read 'em & weep"). Luckily this time around the album on a whole sounds more complete and strong all the way through. Perhaps it's the excellent drumming of Noodles the Madman (perhaps not his birthname) that adds a more grooving feel or the excellent placement of the aforementioned samples, but I'm really digging on this. If you at all dig aggressive industrio-tinged metal-ish music at all (and who doesn't?), you probably could enjoy perverting your mind with this.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 06/1998

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