Cell - Slo*Blo

As I've mentioned before, there was a time when record store cut-out bins were stacked to the ceiling with all the WTF major label signings.  If you dig around long enough you probably still can find a handful of vintage 1993 DGC promo copies of this record at my local  favorite.  

I probably haven't listened to this since I first dismissed it as just another typical major label cash-in on my beloved "underground" sound.  But a funny thing happened recently.  I stumbled back upon the DGC Rarities, Vol. 1 compilation, and it turns out that the Cell track on there is pretty fucking huge.  One thing led to another, and I ordered this CD for one penny plus shipping.  

My penny saved is your penny earned (yeah yeah, not my best metaphor, I know).  Never mind this album is one of the more notorious relics of that borderline-psychotic post-Nevermind major label feeding frenzy.  After fifteen years, Slo*Blo actually holds up really well with such time-lapsed objectivity.  I am obligated to mention Sonic Youth here - Cell's drummer was a SY roadie before hitting the big time, as it were - but save for that relationship and being signed by DGC, that's where the similarities end.  This record is full of loud, midtempo rock songs with soaring guitar duels and anthemic choruses.  If I had to pick an indie rock icon as a reference, I would have to say Lungfish.  That's right.

now you wonder why

Royal Trux - Sweet Sixteen

I think this album is genius, and I think the following review from Rolling Stone nails it perfectly... except for the 1-star rating, that is.

"Virginia's Royal Trux mix bad Company biker blues, Southern rock, synthesized AM drivel and arty college experimentation like an underage bar goer mixes drinks: slamming 'em down till they come back up as regurgitated sonic swill. Combine that with a trailer-trash-chic image – skintight bell-bottoms, cowboy boots and whiskey-warped expressions – and you have an underclass shtick that has made the Trux underground faves.

On their sixth underproduced album and second major-label release (yet another indie band signed in Nirvana's wake), singer Jennifer Herrema works hard at sounding trashy, slurring lyrics in a raspy tone a la Nazareth. She hisses ultranasty lines like "Sweet 16 and never been clean" alongside guitarist and vocalist Neil Hagerty's own thin warble. Indulgent wah-wah guitar solos bump into disjointed drum beats.

Every song on Sweet Sixteen eventually lapses into a meandering mess, even on tunes where the Trux attempt to mimic Zeppelin's repetitive rhythms or the Allman Brothers' jams. Instead of respecting the music they bastardize, the Trux treat it as low art, approaching '70s rock like a cocky adult playing a kids' game. By mid-album, you begin to wish Lynyrd Skynyrd had crashed this recording session and kicked the Trux's pretentious asses into some sort of cohesive groove." (RS 757)

yuk

Royal Trux - Thank You

Much has been made of the major label feeding frenzy in the years following Nevermind. It left many a hipster scratching his head and asking "did they really think this would appeal to the Wreckz-n-Effects-loving masses?"

For what it's worth, Thank You was Royal Trux' most accessible album to date. Everything is relative, of course. This probably would have been far more accessible around stoners' basements everywhere in 1971 than it was around Tower Records in 1995.

Royal Trux took on a full band for this record, as well as Neil Young's then-producer of choice David Briggs. The result was a blissfully jammed out rawk record cut live in the studio, and a presage for the remainder of Trux' run.

The sailor has to masturbate until the ship lands