POP REVIEW : Some Regular Rock From Jim Thirwell

Jim Thirwell has been a fixture on the New York industrial scene since the earliest ‘80s, and the recordings of his various projects--You’ve Got Foetus on Your Breath, Foetus Under Glass, Foetus All-Nude Revue, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel and Wiseblood, among others--have been extremely influential among the growl-and-squirm set. Whenever cognoscenti gather to discuss creepy sexuality in pop music, Thirwell is right up there.

But this time around, touring as Foetus Inc., a six-piece band made up of a bunch of ex-Swans and some other guys, Thirwell seemed less threatening than just plain tired. At a sparsely attended Helter Skelter show Friday, his writhing and pelvis-pumping looked more Tom Jonesian than anything, and his patented snarl sounded almost melodic compared to the sore-throat rantings of the grindcore movement. For once, a Foetus show was less like a cathartic art performance and more like a regular old rock concert.

The band was hot, though, pumping in a sort of multilayered Glenn Branca mode, with air-raid siren guitar solos and full-on assault drumming, and slow, crunching grooves that Soundgarden might have envied.

The highlight of the set was an intense version of John Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus” that veered from brutality to lyricism and back again. Foetus might just be a rock band these days, but it’s a rock band that knows how to play.