Dramamine! Really?
Needed to check I didn’t start listening to the album on shuffle. Was happy the album picked up after the song ended. Otherwise this whole listening club endeavour was going to be a slog.
… what. Goodness me
it’s possibly my fav song of all time. The bassline, the shuffling drums, those crystalline harmonics, the classic MM move from spare beauty to raging noise. Perfect track
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I’ll keep listening and relisten, and give the album some time.
Maybe it is my previous engagement with Modest Mouse through playing Rock Band and Float On is having a negative impact.
going to listen to my album of this over the next few days, great season for it too. But some initial thoughts:
- Dramamine could be their best song
- Isaac might be the guitar hero who most influenced me. Not just someone I wanted to sound like, but someone I actually do sound like (i.e. I’m addicted to whammy’d-harmonics). Even bought a Floyd Rose metal guitar to copy this era of his sound/style - pure fanboy
- Excellent album cover to represent the moods within
- For the first timers - album produced by pre-fame Seasick Steve!
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Some great songs on this album but some real throwaway shite as well. One of those albums that suffers from nothing being in the same league as the opening track.
Their albums are all very long but this is one of the few that feels too long.
Haven’t listened to it in a while, will stick it on later.
Very much this - part of it is that he’s very distinctive but in a very “achievable” way. You don’t need to know about alternate tunings or invest in effects pedals, it’s just a very raw creative sound by someone who himself admits to be quite sloppily self taught
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The 33 1/3 book on Moon and Antarctica has him being very (ahem) modest about it, just saying that he couldn’t play guitar very well so tried to hide it with with weird jerky riffs as if that isn’t a kind of playing very well
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Fun fact: the first time I listened to this album was in the middle of a deep freeze where we often couldn’t leave our house as it was too dangerous.
Haven’t listened back yet but get vivid memories of that time holding back naps to get through the whole album just thinking about it. I had a good time tbh, free week off school and getting deliveries of water from neighbours to fill the tank. Feels weirdly appropriate to the music.
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Shiiit, somehow didn’t realize two listening clubs were starting essentially the same day. Well what’s the big deal? I listen to several albums every day! Let’s go.
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The guitars were mentioned already but I love how loose but in-control the drums are and whatever Seasick Steve did to get them to sound that way was oof. The bass drum especially I can get a sense of weight behind each kick.
I could listen to the loop at the end of Dramamine for hours and those little rimshot cracks in Ionizes and Atomizes would have been turned to mush in the loudness war. I look up to Jeremiah’s playing on the first few albums a lot, though if it’s one of their albums he’s the MVP on it’s this one I think.
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they wrote better songs later but this might be the best they sound as a trio, so direct and raw
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I like Long Drive. I think it achieves an atmosphere in a really cool way and hints at some of the brilliance that is to come. Dramamine is one hell of an opener. I can’t really think of any other band starting a record like that. And the following couple of tracks are fantastic too.
But I do think it dips after that. The middle section has some excellent moments but some of those tracks don’t need to be that long. The closing trio of tracks is fantastic again though. People don’t talk about how good Space Travel Is Boring is. We should be talking about that constantly!
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IT WAS WELL INTENTIONED BUT BAD ADVICE
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Tundra/Desert is great
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Good album, imo
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For fans of inner sleeves, more aesthetic artwork
Seasick Steve on a few instrumental duties, and weirdly a couple bonus tracks compared to the CD version
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Overall agree that there are some really good bits but it’s probably overlong (heart sank a bit when I checked the browser window during Head South and realised we’d barely reached the halfway point). Some general thoughts:
- Don’t quite get the Dramamine love, it’s good but it is it really that head and shoulders above everything else on the album? Especially…
- What a track Custom Concern is. That simple plodding riff and shuffling drums are so evocative, then the long instrumental outro with the strings. Really good stuff.
- Album really sags in the middle; as with other MM albums I’ve heard you can tell when it’s not working when Isaac starts to seem quite annoying (and he’s really annoying on Dog Paddle).
- Really picks up for the last two longer tracks though, really like that squalling harmonic outro on Make Everyone Happy/Mechanical Birds.
- Isaac Brock sounds like he was a particularly cheerless 20 year old.
Probably a great 45 minute album hiding in amongst the less good stuff.
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I’m the opposite, never entirely got the love for Custom Concern