Franz Nicolay of World/Inferno Friendship Society, The Hold Steady and his own solo project, has written a detailed and researched look back at the legendary Subhumans.

Here's an excerpt:

Like Zappa, Dick's default lyrical mode is face-value anti-culture sarcasm; but there are two other increasingly apparent, related, and slightly mystical strains. The first is a fascination with fantastical, Kafka-esque transformation. The guitar-gothic nightmare "Wake Up Screaming" strikes themes of Ovidian, even alchemical metamorphosis: "I don't think I am what I was before".

"Us Fish Must Swim Together" is a swinging creation tale with a back-to-basics moral, in which "we are descended from fish" means literally that ("If we progress much further/We'll put our lives at risk/We're starting to destroy ourselves/With pollution, war, and greed/When food and sex and water/Is all we really need"). "Heads Of State" evokes a Lewis Carroll allegory, a strange vision of literally-replaceable "heads of state" that aren't "screwed on".

Check out the whole thing via Impose Magazine.