The album title sounds more than a little like a Butthole Surfers homage, and little on this 1989 album would disabuse one of the suspicion that this New York combo wants nothing more than to be the East Coast version of those fried Texas weirdos. An interesting mixture of straightforward hardcore punk, Zappa-style left turns into orchestrated noise, and a thoroughly snotty sense of humor, Alice Donut throw in some unexpectedly catchy elements as well: “Testosterone Gone Wild” is a full-on pop song, complete with guitar hooks and backing vocals on the chorus, and “Sky of Bones” has an unexpected resemblance to Redd Kross’ psych-punk era. Tomas Antona’s extremely high, occasionally piercing voice (think of the Three O’Clock’s Michael Quercio mixed with Game Theory’s Scott Miller at his whiniest) will be the dealbreaker for most, and the production is a good deal more trebly and thin than it needs to be, but for anyone with an interest in the noisy-artsy end of ’80s indie rock, Bucketfulls of Sickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life is worth a listen. – Stewart Mason