Over the
past week I got three new (to me) albums. They are:
- Mr. Lif “I Phantom” (2002) – Mr. Lif is
a rap record my buddy Ross bought me. Pretty great stuff. I loved
it on the first listen and I’m looking forward to exploring further.
- The Avett Brothers, “Four Thieves Gone”
(2006) – my third (and earliest) album from indie pop/folk band the Avett
Brothers. I found it just OK on my first listen but I’m looking forward to
a deeper dive soon.
- St. Vincent, “MassEducation” (2018) –
St. Vincent reworks her 2017 album Masseduction with an all acoustic
rendition of the same songs. This album blew me away on the first listen
and is likely to get a lot of play in the weeks ahead.
Look for
all these albums in a review coming here soon…or not soon. That’s up to some
random dice I roll. Isn’t it deliciously exciting not knowing? It is for me.
Disc 1192 is… To Each A Zone
Artist: The
Smalls
Year of Release: 1992
What’s up with the Cover? Probably a picture of the band,
but with a lot of treatments and filters applied. I declare this cover…OK.
How I Came To Know It: Direct from their merch table at
a show at Sugar Nightclub back in 2014.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Smalls albums. I like them all but
somebody has to be last and “To Each A Zone” is it.
Ratings: 3 stars
“To Each a Zone” is a mosh-inducing hair-swinger of
a record that may be the Smalls muddiest, grimiest album in all the good and
bad ways that suggests.
The Smalls are a nineties grunge band, and “To Each
A Zone” embraces the combination of melodic structure, punk energy and metal
crunch that defines that movement.
These guys lay down an impressive groove on this
record, dropping cable-thick riffs with plenty of reverb. The first few tracks
make you want to just stake out a small square of dancefloor and shake all your
hair into your face. For the short-haired out there that have seen this
phenomenon and wondered if it is actually a good time let me assure you, it is.
This is one of the great things about having long hair.
The riffs on “To Each A Zone” aren’t super creative
but they are timeless and the Smalls play them at a high level. Sometimes all
you need in life is a crunchy riff, well played. Other times I wanted the songs
to be a bit more dynamic and varied, but this is a record that is going for an
overall mood, not singular moments. Knowing that going in (which I did) helped
me appreciate it on its own terms.
Bassist Corb Lund also has some great moments,
particularly on “Horse Thief” where
he is the star of the show and even gets a bass solo. You have to be careful
because a little bass solo goes a long way, but on “Horse Thief” the Smalls keep it appropriately restrained.
I also like the vocals
of Mike Caldwell despite his semi-mumbling style. His voice is back in the mix
so in order to hear what he’s saying would be hard anyway, and his delivery
doesn’t make it any easier. Near the end of “BB on the B” Caldwell sings “Don’t
you see what I’m sayin’/It’s the same thing I’ve been sayin’ all along.” No,
Mike, I don’t hear what you’re saying – you mumble too much! That’s OK, though,
because the song has such a great groove I forgive it. It isn’t always about
the words; sometimes it can just be about the feeling.
There are a lot of classic
blues riffs mixed in and grungified, and a couple of songs (“BB on the B”, “Shuffler’s Song”) reminded me of early ZZ Top the way they took old
blues riffs and gave them a hard rock edge.
The front half of the
record is better than the back half, but both have a nice energy. The
production is dulled out, but it is done on perfect to create a miasma of
sound. “To Each a Zone” knows what sound it is trying to achieve and it gets
there. While I didn’t like it as much as my other Smalls albums, I wouldn’t
change it. This record’s visceral, soot-covered sound suits it well.
In fact if I had heard
this album when I was 22 (when it came out) I bet I would have liked it even
more, but I was too busy listening to Celtic folk back then to notice. I regret
nothing, but I’m glad to have broadened my horizons since.
Best
tracks: Payload,
Horse Thief, Only Thing Goin’, Nero Divla (To Each a Zone)
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