Sound Bites
Archers dig back into vaults
The Speed of Cattle
(Alias)
Followers of North
Carolina's Archers of Loaf should be pleased with the band's hour-long
collection of b-sides, compilation tracks, Peel Session recordings and more
on The Speed of Cattle. It includes a number of great tunes that
definitely would have been missed otherwise and serves as an excellent
companion to the band's two albums, 1993's Icky Mettle and last
year's Vee Vee.The Archers of Loaf's
distinctive post-hardcore blend, which sounds like a merger between early
Replacements and the vocal inflection of the Cure's Robert Smith, more than
adequately carries most of the songs on this compilation. The anthemic
"South Carolina" is one of this compilation's many standouts. It has the
infectious melodies and warring guitar duo aesthetic that makes the band so
great. The five Peel Session tracks, "Smokin Pot in the City," "Mutes in
the Steeple," "Revenge," "Freezing Point" and "Backwash" (an alternate
version of the one that appears on Icky Mettle) are instant fun.The only problem with this
compilation is the production on several of the tracks. Lo-fi production
can be used to great gains, but these tracks just sound muddled. It will
take a real fan to appreciate them, though the tracks really don't get in
the way. They are easy to dismiss among so much good material. B--Adam Stackhouse / Contributing Writer
Fairweather Johnson
(Atlantic)
Hootie is back...but did
they ever leave? No, not really. The band quickly wrote and recorded
Fairweather Johnson during and following their never-ending tour for their
breakthrough album Cracked Rear View. The band is so popular that
View is still in the top 50 of the Billboard album charts, selling
upwards of 30,000 copies a week.Here's a helpful hint: if
you already have View, you don't need Fairweather Johnson.
Yes, that sounds bad, but Johnson could easily be out-takes from
View. It's not that the songs are bad, they just sound remarkably
like everything from the last album.The band does brush up
against some non-Hootie-like elements like political statements--in "Old
Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)"--and pointed fly-by-night fan commentary
on the title track. Of course, Hootie & The
Blowfish isn't exactly a band known for its chameleon-like ability of
craftily coming up with new and terribly original ideas or sounds. Hootie
was (and will always be) a fraternity party/bar/southern folksy band. This
isn't a bad thing either, it's just that you can't expect a whole
heck-of-a-lot from them. B--Keith Caulfield / Staff Writer
Villains
(RCA)
Villains is the Verve
Pipe's major label debut after releasing the two independent records
I've Suffered a Head Injury and Pop Smear. And though this
East Lansing, Michigan band does not want to be identified as a mere
alternative rock band, clinging to the security of being partly in the pop
genre, the Verve Pipe is your typical garage-rock band fare.Former Talking Head Jerry
Harrison produced Villains, and his hands can be seen all over the
album with the Verve Pipe coming out resembling other Harrison produced
bands, Live and Crash Test Dummies.One of the stand out songs
on Villains is "Photograph," in heavy rotation on KROQ, which starts
off with a distinctive heavy bass line coupled with persistent percussion.
Brian Vander Ark's lead vocals are rich and edgy on "Photograph," though
the rest of the record fails to catch on to it's innovations and pump out
the same tired formula. The slow drawl of Vander
Ark works well with the style of a few of the songs on Villains,
like "Reverend Girl," the title song and most of the others, but the
molasses-like style of the band is, to put it bluntly, boring. Eventually,
all the songs on the album blend together and one can only tell that
another song has started by checking the display of the CD player.
C--Wendy Szeto / Staff Writer