EMF - The Best Of EMF: Epsom Mad Funkers (2001)

Regrettably, England's EMF had been seared with the curse of premature victory, sometimes belting out "Unbelievable" two or three times per show, and many assumed they'd be forever damned to run from their own success until the day they took off their long shorts and cut their hair. But Epsom Mad Funkers, an emphatic and touching tribute with new songs and a second disc of remixes, proves that what saved them from disaster was an anarchic instinct for just how to nail together the flotsam and jetsam of late-20th century chart music without sounding totally contrived. One moment you could get "Girl of an Age," the great, cherubic baggy anthem that never was, the next you'd be swimming about in megalomaniac, brain-rammed funk ("Perfect Day," "They're Here") or even a sort of facetious revelry, such as the live classic "EMF," which would rather stack up stylistic Lego blocks and smash them to pieces than try to mimic the picture on the box. For better or worse, nobody else sounded like this. They weren't the Happy Mondays, they weren't Take That -- in the end perhaps the only band in history to sound like both. Source: [AMG]

EMF featuring Tom Jones - Unbelievable



Track Listing CD1
1. Unbelievable
2. I Believe
3. Children
4. Lies [Jim's Mix]
5. Girl of an Age
6. Getting Through
7. They're Here
8. It's You
9. Perfect Day [Perfect Mix]
10. Glass Smash Jack
11. Shining
12. I'm a Believer (Emf and Reeves and Mortimer)
13. Incredible
14. Let's Go
15. Search and Destroy
16. Emf (Live at the Bilson)

Track Listing CD2
1. Unbelievable [Bambaattaa House Mix]
2. I Believe [Colt 45 Mix]
3. Children [Battle for the Minds of North Amerikkka Mix]
4. Head the Ball (Put Away in the Back of the Net by Apollo 440)
5. Lies [Dust Bros 12 Club Mix]
6. It's You [13 1/2% Extra Mix]
7. They're Here [D: Ream Mix]
8. Perfect Day (Chris and James' Epic Adventure)
9. The Light That Burns Twice as Bright [Mystic Mix]
10. It's You [Rad Rice Mix]
11. Unbelievable [Ralph Jezzard Remix]

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The Posies - Frosting On The Beater (1993)

Frosting on the Beater opens with a thick wall of distorted guitars and booming drums kicking up a very melodic fuss behind Ken Stringfellow and Jonathan Auer's creamy-smooth harmonies on the psych-tinged "Dream All Day," and the track's sweet-and-sour blend immediately announces this is going to be a very different affair than the Posies' major label debut, Dear 23. With noisy rock dude Don Fleming in the producer's chair, it came as no great surprise that Frosting on the Beater was a much harder sounding album than the introspective Dear 23, but surprisingly enough, Fleming also knew how to make the most of the band's expert pop songwriting; with the tempos and guitars turned, the tunes gained a needed physical impact that brought the melodies and hooks into the forefront, where they belonged. Just as importantly, the spot-on harmonies that were the highlight of Dear 23 were still very much in evidence, resting atop the piles of fuzzy guitar chords like a dollop of hot fudge poured over a big scoop of ice cream. And prior to this, who knew that Ken Stringfellow and Jonathan Auer could rock out so hard (and so well) on guitars? One could argue that the big guitar attack of Frosting on the Beater was simply the Posies' way of trying to cash in on the grunge sweepstakes that briefly turned their hometown of Seattle into the center of the rock universe. But one listen also reveals that it transformed a smart but overly precious pop outfit into a hard-charging power pop band that gained a wealth of strength without giving up any of their smarts in the process — not a bad bargain. Source: [AMG]

The Posies - Solar Sister


Track Listing
1. Dream All Day
2. Solar Sister
3. Flavor of the Month
4. Love Letter Boxes
5. Definite Door
6. Burn & Shine
7. Earlier Than Expected
8. 20 Questions
9. When Mute Tongues Can Speak
10. Lights Out
11. How She Lied by Living
12. Coming Right Along

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Sebadoh - Bakesale (1994)

With Bakesale, Sebadoh has trimmed down to Lou Barlow, Jason Loewenstein, and Bob Fay, with Barlow and Loewenstein taking on the lion's share of the songwriting. Maybe the change in personnel was needed, because Bakesale is their most accessible, concise work to date. Without the noise that usually envelops their records, the solid, unconventional pop songwriting of Barlow and Loewenstein shines through brightly. Source: [AMG]

Sebadoh - Careful




Track Listing
1. License to Confuse
2. Careful
3. Magnet's Coil
4. Not a Friend
5. Not Too Amused
6. Dreams
7. Skull
8. Got It
9. S. Soup
10. Give Up
11. Rebound
12. Mystery Man
13. Temptation Tide
14. Drama Mine
15. Together or Alone

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Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura (1995)

After the noisy but dream-like drift of Painful, Electr-O-Pura found Yo La Tengo in livelier and more outwardly enthusiastic form; while they had hardly abandoned their more subdued and contemplative side, as evidenced by the lovely "The Hour Grows Late" and "Pablo and Andrea," they seemed eager to once again explore the grittier textures they'd unearthed on President Yo La Tengo and May I Sing With Me with tunes like the gleefully manic "False Ending" and the bizarre horn-blasted "Attack on Love." Yo La Tengo also served up one of the most perfectly realized pop tunes in their repertoire with "Tom Courtenay" (which not only name checks the Beatles, but boasts a tune the Fab Four would have been happy to come up with themselves), and revisited the concept of the noisy groove jam (which they pioneered on "The Evil That Men Do (Pablo's Version)") with the acetone-powered "False Alarm" and the joyous "Blue Line Swinger." Throughout, Ira Kaplan's simple but forceful guitar lines, Georgia Hubley's steady, subtly inventive drumming, and James McNew's solid, supportive bass add up to a group that prizes intelligence and imagination over flash, and makes it work over and over. Few bands have consistently better ideas than Yo La Tengo, and they make 14 of them work like a charm on Electr-O-Pura. (By the way, those incongruous comments about the songs were lifted from an obscure book on the Blues Project, and don't trust those timings on the back cover -- they're deliberately inaccurate.). Source: [AMG]

Yo La Tengo - Tom Courtenay


Track Listing
1. Decora
2. Flying Lesson [Hot Chicken #1]
3. The Hour Grows Late
4. Tom Courtenay
5. False Ending
6. Pablo and Andrea
7. Paul Is Dead
8. False Alarm
9. The Ballad of Red Buckets
10. Don't Say a Word [Hot Chicken #2]
11. (Straight Down to the) Bitter End
12. My Heart's Reflection
13. Attack on Love
14. Blue Line Swinger

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The Jesus Lizard - Head/Pure (1992)

The place to start for those new to the Jesus Lizard, this two-fer collects on one CD the first EP release (Pure) and first LP release (Head) of the notorious '90s noise rock band. It does a fine job of completing the picture of the band's early work. Source [AMG]

The Jesus Lizard - Bloody Mary



Track Listing
1. One Evening
2. S.D.B.J.
3. My Own Urine
4. If You Had Lips
5. 7 Vs. 8
6. Pastoral
7. Waxeater
8. Good Thing
9. Tight 'n Shiny
10. Killer McHann
11. Blockbuster
12. Bloody Mary
13. Rabid Pigs
14. Starlet
15. Happy Bunny Goes Fluff-Fluff Along

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Hammerhead - Duh, The Big City (1996)

Hammerhead's final release opens with the propulsive, Chrome-like "Earth (I Won't Miss)." The song is as loud and fast as anything the Midwestern trio had ever done before, but with a more pronounced psych/prog rock edge -- as befits its sci-fi-sounding title -- and prefigures the rest of Duh, the Big City, which is crisper and yet more experimental than previous recordings. The lineup had also changed since their last full-length, with Craig Klaus taking the place of guitarist Paul Sanders, who left to form his own band. If for some strange reason you should find yourself falling asleep while listening to this rocking little record -- a highly unlikely occurrence -- crazed instrumental "Mr. Bizmuth," which teeters on the edge of Metal Machine Music-style unlistenability, will surely wake you right up (all your friends and neighbors, too). Oddly enough, it isn't the last track (or even a bonus track), but is followed by the considerably more melodic title track, "Duh, the Big City," which closes the book on the brief but compelling story of Hammerhead. Paul Erickson and Jeff Mooridian Jr. would next materialize in the two-man noise unit Vaz. [AMG]

Hammerhead - Tuffskins



Track Listing
1. Earth (I Won't Miss)
2. Meandrethal
3. New York?...Alone?
4. Mission: Illogical
5. I Don't Know...Texas
6. Victoria
7. Monkey Mountain
8. Zenith Factory
9. Mune
10. Mr. Bizmuth
11. Duh, The Big City

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Flying Saucer Attack - Further (1995)

Thanks to its release on Drag City and an increasingly higher profile (and rabid fan base), Further turned out to be FSA's breakthrough, at least in cult terms. Even Rolling Stone reviewed the album (amusingly pairing it with a modern Pink Floyd live release), but Further was anything but a corporate sellout. Rather, the twosome achieved a new balance of delicacy and power, heightened in noticeable part by Pearce's increasingly assertive singing. His vocal approach of extended sigh as singing hadn't changed, but his words had a new clarity and crisper delivery, with fine results. Otherwise, FSA stayed the same general course musically, but again the arrangements provide the difference, with the unplugged folk side of Pearce's music now firmly taking the fore on songs like the extended, multipart "For Silence," often with gentle reverb or extra studio effects that make the songs all that much more intriguing. It's not quite Bert Jantsch or John Fahey redux, but there's a definite sonic connection there that's well worth the hearing. Other highlights are the clear acoustic notes cutting through the hum and drone of the majestic "In the Light of Time" or the buried waves of electric guitar in counterpoint to the gentle picking on "Come and Close My Eyes" -- the latter accompanied at the end with what sounds like a typewriter, without sounding jarring or out of place. No compromises were aimed at radio-friendly unit shifters -- opening track "Rainstorm Blues," a roaring feedback squall ascending and descending in volume, got further accompaniment from hard-to-place crumbles and squeals, Brook's growling bass work setting the mood even stranger. Brook herself gets a lovely moment of vocal glory on "Still Point," her voice even more soft and restrained than Pearce's, rising through a striking squall of sound and, once again, upfront acoustic guitar. Source: [AMG]




Track Listing
1. Rainstorm Blues
2. In the Light of Time
3. Come and Close My Eyes
4. For Silence
5. Still Point
6. Here Am I
7. To the Shore
8. She Is the Daylight

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The Presidents Of The United States Of America - The Presidents Of The United States Of America (1995)

In the time-honored tradition of the Dickies, the punk-pop of the Presidents of the United States of America is brief, hooky, and dumb -- it's novelty punk. Granted, that approach can occasionally produce a couple of naggingly catchy songs -- particularly their breakthrough hit, "Lump" -- but it basically results in a series of smug, self-satisfied songs that are neither funny nor catchy. Like the Dickies, the Presidents of the United States of America aren't much more than one-hit wonders. Source: [AMG]

The Presidents Of The United States Of America - Lump



Track Listing
1. Kitty
2. Feather Pluckn
3. Lump
4. Stranger
5. Boll Weevil
6. Peaches
7. Dune Buggy
8. We Are Not Going to Make It
9. Kick out the Jams
10. Body
11. Back Porch
12. Candy
13. Naked and Famous

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Seam - Are You Driving Me Crazy? (1995)

Seam had never had the most stable lineup, but Sooyoung Park and Lexi Mitchell had maintained a partnership, personal and otherwise, from the Bitch Magnet days. That all changed after the excellent The Problem With Me, and the end result was the band's most fraught album yet, with Park working with a wholly new band and conveying more than a few desperate and frustrated sentiments in the music and lyrics. Starting the album with "Berlitz," using the reference to language guides as a metaphor for failures to communicate and their repercussions, was as much as a sign as any. That said, Park's general goal at balancing sudden intensity with restraint and quiet beauty remained intact, and at times, such as "Haole Redux," succeeded spectacularly. The new members -- guitarist Reg Shrader, bassist William Shin, and drummer Chris Manfrin -- all do a pretty fine job at replacing their counterparts from The Problem With Me, something further helped by the reappearance of Brad Wood as producer. Still, there is a change and maybe even a lack -- Shin in particular, though still spot on, misses the gentle melodicism that Mitchell had provided, and as a result the dramatic melancholia of the past feels a bit more abrupt at points. For the first time as well, Park creates notably long songs, four out of ten running over five minutes and resulting in the longest Seam album yet. It's a comparative lack of economy more than anything else -- this isn't Rick Wakeman-era Yes, thank heavens -- but moments like the extended soloing on "Port of Charleston" make the album just not quite as special as the preceding ones, a drawing out when the group could formerly pack beautifully compact punches. Credit should be given to guest performer Julie Liu, though, whose various vocal and musical contributions are fine, understated touches. Source: [AMG]

Seam - Berlitz



Track Listing
1. Berlitz
2. Hey Latasha
3. Port of Charleston
4. Rainy Season
5. Two Is Enough
6. Haole Redux
7. Tuff Luck
8. Broken Bones
9. Sometimes I Forget
10. Petty Thievery

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Screaming Trees - Dust (1996)

In many ways, the Screaming Trees missed their opportunity. They released Sweet Oblivion just as grunge began to capture national attention and they didn't tour the album extensively, which meant nearly all of their fellow Seattle bands became superstars while they stood to the side. After four years, they returned with Dust, their third major-label album, and by that point, the band's sound was too idiosyncratic for alternative radio. Which is unfortunate, because Dust is the band's strongest album. Sure, the rough edges that fueled albums like Uncle Anesthesia are gone, but in its place is a rustic hard rock, equally informed by heavy metal and folk. The influence of Mark Lanegan's haunting solo albums is apparent in both the sound and emotional tone of the record, but this is hardly a solo project -- the rest of the band has added a gritty weight to Lanegan's spare prose. The Screaming Trees sound tighter than they ever have and their melodies and hooks are stronger, more memorable, making Dust their most consistently impressive record. Source: [AMG]

Screaming Trees feat. Josh Homme - Witness

Track Listing
1. Halo of Ashes
2. All I Know
3. Look at You
4. Dying Days
5. Make My Mind
6. Sworn and Broken
7. Witness
8. Traveler
9. Dime Western
10. Gospel Plow

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