Saturday, December 06, 2008

753. Sebadoh - Bubble and Scrape (1993)

















Track Listing

1. Soul And Fire
2. Two Years Two Days
3. Telecosmic Alchemy
4. Fantastic Disaster
5. Happily Divided
6. Sister
7. Cliche
8. Sacred Attention
9. Elixir Is Zog
10. Emma Get Wild
11. Sixteen
12. Homemade
13. Forced Love
14. No Way Out
15. Bouquet For A Siren
16. Think (Let Tomorrow Be)
17. Flood

Review

This is a strange album, but not really in the best way possible. While some tracks are quite beautiful alternate rock of the jangly kind others are more in the Captain Beefheart vein. Now I like both of these styles, but I usually like them at different occasions.

So the album just feels a bit schizo, this is because different members of the band create different tracks and therefore the album has a disjointed feel. Lou Barlow's contributions are really the most rewarding here.

The album sounds like something coming out of a band that is clearly disintegrating, and while often that might be a good thing, here it just feels disjointed. It is clear why Eric Gaffney left after this album, his style doesn't really fit here.

Track Highlights

1. Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)
2. Soul and Fire
3. Two Years, Two Days
4. Forced Love

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was performed live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties-curated Don't Look Back series at London's Koko venue in May 2008, and Pitchfork's Music Festival in July 2008 at Chicago's Union Park.

Soul and Fire live at the Pitchfork music festival:


1 comment:

Matthew said...

Hey, I was at that performance. They were hilariously unprepared to switch of every two songs, and they fell about 20 minutes behind because of it.

I think III is a much better album. The whole band was much more in tune with eachother, and so it was just one wonderfully long album of slightly psychedelic, lo-fi indie rock.

Not to say I dislike Gaffney's songs here; they just don't fit at all.