#2205 Green River - Dry as a Bone

Patient zero-ish of the Gossard//Ament lineage is a sloppy, angular, start-stop blast of proto-grunge punk. The thin mix, strained vocals and tryhard vibe keep this from really catching fire, but you can feel how the pre-Pearl Jam backbone really wanted to do something //more// -- pushing beats around, messing with lurch and sludge as counterpoints to their purer punk impulses. Underbaked and slightly unlistenable, but a worthwhile slice of history 3/5

#2199 Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog

The Ament/Gossard band between Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam's got nothing on either.

It's a testament to Andrew Wood's genius and Chris Cornell's failures. Where Wood was powerful, Cornell is showy. Where Wood drew you to him, Cornell forces himself upon you.

This is the Chris Cornell show, his vocals mixed too high, composed to prominently, constantly making themselves the point, while (outside a choice solo or ten) the band plods along. It's the kind of frontman excess the 90's were so often so good at getting away from.

Which might be fine, if I liked Chris Cornell's voice.

But I do not.

Footnote'd!

2.5/5

#2198 Mother Love Bone - Apple

More than a before-they-were-in-Pearl-Jam footnote! Mother Love Bone's only album is actually pretty solid in its own right. The riffs are solid, the lyrics invitingly mysterious, with some real swervy, memorable moments (dig that last minute of Stardog Champion!).

Two asides about 90's rock.

First:

This sounds like it was written to be played in the clubs of Seattle. Like, you know how late-era Coldplay and U2 sounds made to be played in arenas? You can hear where a band sees themselves playing in their music, and that tells you a lot about who that band is. And in rock music, who you are _matters_

So who is mother love bone? More so than pearl jam, more so than stone temple pilots or nirvana, it sounds like a band writing songs to play out: intimately, meaningfully - that spirit rendered to tape. And there's something earthy and legitimate and warm and uncommonly rock and roll about that, especially in the production-driven world of the 10's.

Second:

It's easy to see 90's rock as obsessed almost exclusively with 70's hard rock - a back to basics reaction to the 80's flagrant nonsense. But one thread survived: glam rock. It comes out here and there, in British acts like Spacehog and Kula Shaker, in flashes on Tiny Music, Mellon Collie, and Without You I'm Nothing. This's a key touchstone: Andrew Wood moans and writhes and declares himself, like a sexy preacher, like a nightbound dreamer, like a tights-bound space commander.

There's a Guns 'n' Roses thread running though the entire album, the guitars funking and soaring, Wood wailing and mewling - but all the machismo's dropped, it's just that fuckin, ima do me spirit, that strutting confidence, that's left.

--

If I'd come across this in the 90's I would have played it to death. There's something in its sprawling ambition, its sincerity and effortless invention, its offkilter structures. It's that old stuff, that channeling of the rock and roll that gets +10 piercing to your soul.

There's a whole microtreatise here about how 90's music hooks into hearts, but mother jesus this thing is long already.

A grower, sneakily essential if you missed it the first time around 4.5/5

#2156 Milk Music - Cruise Your Illusion

I hear these guys get tagged with "grunge" and that's lazy bullshit - grunge says lack of caring, lack of hooks, lack of hope.

This is all hope, all spirit. If you've gotta play the comparison game, go with The Men's hypnotic//soaring structures, Jeff the Brotherhood's spunky charm, Japandroids' grasping at the universe - and gigantic stacks of fuzzy guitars like you piled up all three. And you should know if those're my three data points, I'm all in, riding these waves of buzz and desperate optimism to the heavens 4.5/5

#2154 Wipers - Youth of America

A hidden post-punk gem, Wipers chug and pulse with rocksolid tension and cool, spiked with hooky little rips and jags and exclamations. Propulsive in labyrinthine patterns, never standing still, never going anywhere, building walls of fuzz higher and higher just to give themselves something to knock over, climaxing in the writhing 10-minute title track.

I'm wildly consistent about the credit I give for getting in first, but I can't get away from appreciating that this was some cuttingedge shit in 1981 - shades of Gang of Four, Television, and all the greats, taken to frantic new extremes 4.5/5

#2153 Dead Moon - In the Graveyard

Noisy, ragged garage rock that pops with desperation and energy, every song on just this side of the end. Everything falls apart and shrieks and clatters, with an everpresent, wobbly surf surge keeping things mysterious. Exciting, messy stuff 3.5/5

#2152 Beat Happening - Jamboree

Lo-fi production, relentless chugging guitars, unflinching deadpan delivery -- I'm down with all that when it's backed up by hooks and songwriting (GBV, Pavement,Sonic Youth), but this is a plod to nowhere. What was clever in 1988, sounds lazy 30 years later.

The only thing that holds up is its indie-pop encapsulation of micro-scene, that inspiration that You Can Too, Kid. If you want to find your way to a place where your most personal thoughts are special and matter to your friends and your lack of grand inspiration's a roundabout advantage (and I say this all without malice or irony - what a wonderful mindset to find!) this bygone artifact might inspire 3/5