Like folks have said, itās a bit of an outlier. Fidelity-wise, some of the tracks sound like rehearsal jams and that does frustrate me cos the quality of tunes on this record is high. I guess, typically, the saving grace for me when GBV go very lofi is that you can usually hear Bob, but on this one a lot of the time you canāt make the vox out at all.
That said, thereās plenty of good here. For every track with buried vox, theres something nice and clear, and these tunes have a real classic quality. I really love Marchers In Orange with the harmonium. But Gleemer, Jar Of Cardinals, Wondering Boy Poet and Non-Absorbing are all classics too.
On balance, I donāt like it as much as the surrounding golden era releases, but it is still chock full of gems!
Another pretty easy choice IMO. Behind Propeller but well ahead of anything else so far. The general murk and muddiness ends up swamping perhaps one too many songs on Vampire, so I think this will eventually land somewhere in the upper reaches of mid-table. Lots of great songs, but Iād never recommend it as an introduction to the band.
This feels like an exact quality mid-point between Devil/SIAN and the upcoming classics ā theyāre now reaching high points they hadnāt got to before Propeller, but there are enough weak tracks and vocal production annoyances to knock it down a bit. If the vocals just werenāt shit on the very best and biggest tracks I wouldnāt even care ā but alas
Got a handful of brilliant rockers and fuzzed pop gems, some of the prettiest tracks either songwriter has come up with before or since, and some weird wandering experiments. Itās all over the place but as I said before, think it feels more GBV for that than Propeller did. Weāre getting more of that song-collage sketchbook feel they lean into after this
Probably would reach for SIAN over this if I just wanted to listen to a whole album, but the 5~ best tracks on here are peerless. Iād also pull out the Donkey School-Dusted-Marchers in Orange run as being an underrated section, not voting for any of them but that is an excellent 5 mins of music
also the amount of Tobin backing vocals we get all over this may be the best thing about it, that was one of the things just missing from the whole early-GBV template. So goddamn sweet
just playing now, and the DO DO DO DOO might be the hookiest thing Bob ever wrote
also the ending guitar of that, the fuzzy jangle chords - thatās like the Tobin sound right? Associate it with the outros of some many GBV classics, instantly made me think I was listening to Tractor Rape Chain or Huffman Prairie or or
Shocker is another one of those irrepressible 90s gems when Bob wrote them in his sleep. That big vocal harmony at the end with the wall of guitar is perfecto
Iāll Get Over It Is fun melodically, but then what the fuck are those drums?? Sounds like a sabotage
Break Even is great! That sludgy psych into the real pretty acoustic, sounds like current-GBV more than anything from their 90s output
funny that we have the title tracks for both Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes on here - and theyāre both kinda crap. Now and then GBV sound like they should never have been allowed to leave the basement ā¦ okay Alien Lanes is growing on me in a catchy-annoying way
I remember reading the 33 1/3 book on Bee Thousand and apparently they had a really hard time sequencing the album and there were loads of different versions that they couldnāt decide between. They let the Scat Records label guy have a go and thatās the one that got used. The lad absolutely nailed it didnāt he.
