Wammo (1995)

Often criticized for its lack of raw edginess given the band's origins, Wammo has Bailter Space opening up their sound and emphasizing melody more than ever. I think I'm in the minority that thinks that by this stage, they might as well have written 10 pop songs instead of every now and then trying to remind us of their roots such as in We Drive At Five. When they're not wanting to split the listener's head open, they're writing songs like Splat which are incredible. The angularity of the guitars recall Shellac, again reminding of Gordons' immense influence, while the little moments where a sweet melody is cut short and the distortion is left to ring out recall Justin Broadrick's work in Godflesh's underrated Hymns. Mostly though, Wammo is spacier, leading to Failure comparisons. The scope of Failure by way of Shellac and Godflesh? Yeah, in places it's that good! Again, I feel let down whenever the band return to their Sonic Youth, or worse, post-punk/industrial influences, like why'd you do that to Zapped?!, but those moments are fewer than I'm making out. Check D Thing for a Neu!-ish driving rhythm with noise pop over the top, and Splat 'cause that song is SO GOOD. Critics noting the half-pop sound here give it something like a 3/5 'cause there's still the Skeptics/Fugazi/Sonic Youth pretensions underneath it all. I'll do sorta the same, but the opposite, like get that shit out of my Shellac pop!

B-

spotify
buy

Animal Collective - Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished (2000)

Actually by Avey Tare and Panda Bear but I like keeping things tidy. Having a love-hate relationship with the band, I feel like I can't say THIS IS THEIR BEST, but I'll happily write I THINK THIS ONE IS THEIR BEST instead!

I promise the noise will eventually make sense, and if you stick it out 'til that happens, you might end up agreeing with me. Any feeling I might have that I'm being contrarian (it's a polarizing one), or relying on vibes rather than sense (I do that often, and Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished has REAL good vibes), is put to rest by the songs Alvin Row and Penny Dreadfuls. The former is a perfect indie rock song which could go on for hours and I'd keep listening. They try me for 12 minutes and I stand by that until they give up. The latter is the skeleton of the kind of song they'd later jam on and build up, but seems perfect to me as a rough draft. The thin textures, spare arrangement, and uncomfortable low-singing (don't be so shy!) with affecting outbursts (LEAVE MY BOY ALONE!) make it seem rather personal to ol' Panda, or just an enticing mix of strangeness and enigmatic purpose. I don't care. I'm moved every time!

A+

try
buy
spotify

Rocketship - A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness (1996)

On A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness, Rocketship attempt to take on the familiar narrative of love and regret similar to Girls’ Album, Tom Waits’ Martha, and Fennesz’s Endless Summer.

Like Girls’ debut, Rocketship draw on various styles to capture the feeling of heartbreak, and suitably Elvis Costello-ish moments occur in both: Girls’ aping of Costello’s modernization of Buddy Holly and The Beach Boys, and Rocketship’s use of jarring organs and na-na-na choruses. The difference is that between sentimental vintage pop workouts, Girls wrote epics about refusing to give up, acknowledging the need to move on with life. Rocketship, however, never acknowledge the present. The naivete of their twee language comes with the naive hope to return to the past. Waits’ Martha captured the spirit of regret and life-denying nostalgia as the narrator is melancholy in the verses but happy in the choruses where he recalls the past. Unlike Girls, Waits sees no point in allowing his narrator to move on- he’ll presumably be stuck longing for the past as the present continues to slip into the past- it’s already been “forty years or more,” Martha’s married and Frost’s only getting older. This sad state is acknowledged by Fennesz in his masterpiece A Year in a Minute. The promise of an “endless summer” is ostensibly challenged by the song as things become not only temporal, but uncontrollably rapid. Fennesz’s album has been described as a sort of futuristic nostalgia- his “endless summer” is a vacuum one can return to at any time, but as he warns, years will go by in a minute. Underneath the joy is a sick decay. Rocketship say the same: their songs appear like an endless summer being remembered by no one in particular- it could be an elderly Tom Frost or a family on a distant planet (as with Fennesz). However, whereas Fennesz re-arranged and disemboweled old records to show how the present manipulates memories, Rocketship still don’t acknowledge any present. Their trick is to have the listener reminisce so that years can go by in a minute. Fennesz’s aesthetic reminds the listener of the nature of that endless summer, Rocketship seemingly, cynically wish to entrap the listener in it. At least, I felt that way until the album’s title clicked for me. The band promise that “certain smile,” but warn that it comes with “a certain sadness.” It smiles, as Waits does, but only when it’s caught remembering something- everything else is regret and decay.

It’s an enjoyable record, just watch out for when it promises transcendence in its Loop-like moments, sweet memories in its Elvis Costello and Sweet Trip ones, and introspection when it goes Loveless-ish abstraction. It offers something happy, but the warning’s in the title.

A+

spotify
buy

Modest Mouse - Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks (2001)

WELL I THINK IT'S NICE! Inevitably living in the shadow of the band's MASTERPIECE The Moon & Antarctica, this EP is plain good. The seven minute Night on the Sun is the best and most important song on here, but also a polarizing one- the listener's opinion on it will determine how much he/she enjoys the EP overall. I like Modest Mouse gone post-rock more than Modest Mouse gone bland or dangerous so I'm a fan!

The three minute opener Wilful Suspension of Disbelief sets the tone for the EP with heaps of ideas crammed in so that they (and the downer vibe) can be worked out and stretched out in the fantastic extension piece- Night on the Sun. It's all the more fun when Brock's quiet voice affectingly erupts into yells about getting filled up on blood and stabbing blood and all sorts of things about blood, and the band boldly throw a simple solo into the middle of the song so that for the remaining time the listener's stuck witnessing all the weird layers and ideas coming crumbling down. None of the layers or ideas should work any way, so it's exciting hearing the band build something so beautiful and moving out of them, and then sorta destroy it all just as we begin to connect or relate to it

After that the band go quirky and upbeat and Wilco and spacey and Butthole Surfers and Beck and so on for the remaining tracks, and to be honest I could do without a few of them, but I keep listening any way because the band's gloomy avant-garde post-rock workout looms over all that shit and makes it appealingly twisted even when the band don't want it to be that way

B+

spotify
buy

Sebadoh - Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock (1992)

1. Cry Sis 2:52

2. Brand New Love 4:04

3. Notsur Dnuora Selcric 3:04

4. Vampire 2:43

5. Good Things 1:26

6. Cecilia Chime in Melee 4:19

7. Everybody’s Been Burned 3:15

8. Junk Bonds 1:53

9. New Worship 2:21

10. Mean Distance 3:11

11. Pink Moon 2:02

12. Mind Meld 7:10

Compilation featuring tracks from two import only releases (Rocking the Forest and Sebadoh vs Helmet)

All the goodness of your golden era Sebadoh record as well as all the consciously uneven shite (it's lo-fi don't ya know), but it all just seems so much more manageable at only 12 tracks. Helping things along is Brand New Love, a song which manages to show the band at their full potential because they're trying their hardest to write a straightforward rock song which rocks hard as well as emotionally and they do that with loud-quiet dynamics, sweet melodies, and a shit-load of distortion

B

spotify