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All Music Guide Review:
Review by Stewart Mason
Part one of a two-part CD single (a popular dodge in Great Britain in the '90s, forcing up sales positions by tempting completists into buying two copies of the same single for the different B-sides), "Masquerade" features a catchy burbling electronic melody that doesn't really fit with Mark E. Smith's usual ranting vocals. "Ivanhoe's Two Pence" is more like it, with a shaggy guitar pop groove supporting a dialogue segment out of an old movie" alternating with a more low-key, almost restrained Smith vocal. That restraint is gone in "Spencer Must Die," a noisy harangue set to grinding guitar that almost sounds like one of the group's early punk-era singles, but the sluggish "Ten Houses of Eve" definitely smacks of filler.
Mark Prindle Review:
Masquerade Disc 1 EP - Artful 1997
7 out of 10
You know how Jello Biafra refused to let me interview him? You keep up with this stuff, right? Well, he did. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that my wife came up with this brilliant idea that I should have taken her up on: Disguising my voice and saying, "Hello, Jello Biafra! My name is Mr. Flibbles and I'm your interviewer!" I totally should have done that. I could have put a fake mustache on the phone and everything. But alack, a day's sickle whipped through the weeds of opportunity, and another chance to interview Jello Biafra was pissed down the shitter. Why? Why did I not take my wife's idea and put on a Masquerade?
Which brings us to the second Bachman-Turner Overdrive LP. You know, it's not often that a Canadian rock band will have more than one good song on an album but the day these boys (or "bruddahs") recorded "Takin' Care Of Business" and "Let It Ride," Joseph Smith must have been fucking another baboon in Heaven because t
This 4-track EP (NO NO, I MEAN IT HAS FOUR SONGS ON IT -- NOT THAT IT WAS RECORDED ON A 4-track) contains two remixes of Levitate songs, one unconscionably bad live recording of a third Levitate song, and an otherwhere unavailable leftover B-side pop song entitled "Ivanhoes Two Pence." Its piano plays a charming lilt, its guitar jangle-scrapes a light melodic chord round, and the prettiness of repetitive prettiness carries it a whiff above many a Fall album track you could chance to name ("Symbol Of Mordgan," "Devolute," "Papal Visit" - see? I chanced to name quite a several!).
There's hardly any reason at all why any owner of Levitate should spend money on this release just for one lovely b-side. The remixes are almost identical to the album mixes, the live track's a stinker and the artwork is pulled straight from its full-length cousin in the marines (Levitate - sorry, got a little vague with my diction there). But if you happen to run across it one night in a dark alleyway, RAPE THE SHIT OUT OF IT!!!!! RAPE RAPE RAPE!!!! RAPE ITS FUCKIN ASS OFF!!!!
Oh hang on, who switched the "R" and "T" keys on my typewriter?
And more importantly, how did they manage to do it while I was typing on it?
You know what? I must have gone to use the bathroom right after typing the word "alleyway." THAT'S when somebody came in here and switched the letters. Then I must not have noticed until after I'd typed several more words in all caps. THAT must be what happened.
Say! Nice rirs!
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