Ryan Dannar's Album Reviews
I love this record. One of the most underrated albums of the 1990s. For many, however, this album isn't anywhere CLOSE to an easy listen. The Allmusic review doesn't really do justice to how utterly alien many of these songs might sound to an average listener. It's as if some hardcore punks took the discographies of Queen, Fugazi, David Bowie, and Sonic Youth, shattered them into tiny bits, then re-arranged them in an artful collage, letting the seams show where they may.
The sound of this album famously failed to connect with audiences as well as Epic, Shudder to Think's label, had hoped. Despite a well-selected single, the weirder-than-it-seems "X-French T-Shirt," the album fizzled. Mainstream listeners weren't exactly ready for a band which combined atonal stop-start riffage, sweet but fragmented melodic hooks, dense harmonies, impossibly knotty time-signatures, and surreal glam-rock vocals sung in an unapologetically operatic and over-the-top style. These are all pleasures to be found on this album, to be sure -- but they didn't quite sound like pleasures to most mainstream listeners in 1994.
And yet, even though this album failed to connect with mainstream audiences during the time of its initial release, it did connect with certain audiences and a few critics. Its stature and influence has certainly grown since then -- if only by a small measure -- but in quarters where this album is loved, it is LOVED, and you can hear its influence clearly in the sound of bands like Deerhoof and The Mercury Tree.
The sound of this album famously failed to connect with audiences as well as Epic, Shudder to Think's label, had hoped. Despite a well-selected single, the weirder-than-it-seems "X-French T-Shirt," the album fizzled. Mainstream listeners weren't exactly ready for a band which combined atonal stop-start riffage, sweet but fragmented melodic hooks, dense harmonies, impossibly knotty time-signatures, and surreal glam-rock vocals sung in an unapologetically operatic and over-the-top style. These are all pleasures to be found on this album, to be sure -- but they didn't quite sound like pleasures to most mainstream listeners in 1994.
And yet, even though this album failed to connect with mainstream audiences during the time of its initial release, it did connect with certain audiences and a few critics. Its stature and influence has certainly grown since then -- if only by a small measure -- but in quarters where this album is loved, it is LOVED, and you can hear its influence clearly in the sound of bands like Deerhoof and The Mercury Tree.
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