I woke up this morning feeling a bit sore, despite a weekend of doing very little. Such is middle age and the entropy of COVID.
Disc 1426 is…. Still Feel Gone
Artist: Uncle Tupelo
Year of Release: 1991
What’s up with the Cover? A thin strip of a picture depicting the band playing, artfully overexposed until you can’t really tell what’s going on. All this on a background of either woodgrain or a wall that needs a second coat of paint – like with the picture, it was hard to tell..
How I Came To Know It: For the band, through my friend Brennan. As for the specific album? That is lost to the mists of time and too many bands in between then and now. There is a price to be paid for constantly exploring new bands, and that price is an overburdened memory.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Uncle Tupelo albums, which is their whole studio collection. Of the four, “Still Feel Gone” is the weakest, coming in at #4. I realize this may be an unpopular position among Uncle Tupelo fans but I gotta be true to me.
Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3
When college rock gets too angsty it runs the risk of losing the plot in an excess of plaintive pining. “Still Feel Gone” has some solid songwriting, but it crosses this line a few too many times.
The album came out in 1991, and I don’t know how it didn’t fill my impressionable mind when I was hanging around the Student Union Building back in the day. It is replete with songs that speak directly to young adulthood, when life is full of uncertainty, and the enormity of the future weighing heavily on young minds. I can only assume it was playing in the background at the university pub on more than one occasion and I was absorbing it by osmosis.
The record has some powerful moments, primarily when the band explores the darkest inner workings of the human soul. “Still Be Around” is a stark portrait of binge drinking and self-loathing:
When the bible is a bottle
And the hardwood floor is home
When morning comes twice a day or not at all
If I break in two will you put me back together”
This is a record for a good wallow and a few too many pints downed well after midnight. What’s more these songs are strong enough that they don’t feel dated. After all, the enormity of the future is capable of weighing on us at any age, although hopefully along the way we get the good sense to not get up close and personal with the floor or sleeping away the morning.
That said there is a lot of self-destructive behavior and bemoaning of harsh fortune here. If the record had taken its foot off the gas even just a little bit, all those darker moments would have hit much harder.
Also, while I fell hard for the folksy feel of the guitar strums, when the band rocks out (which is about half the time) they lost me a little. There is a lot of visceral energy in those moments, but the songs that tend to use this approach either feel like they aren’t as strong melodically in the first place, or – more often – that the melodies are getting drowned without a purpose. Even some of the more powerful songs, like “Fall Down Easy” have the band descending into banging away with cacophonous glee by the end. I suppose it is intended to evoke frustration, and a hint of impotent rage and on those fronts, it does well enough.
There is a cowpoke-punk quality to the record that is likely a source of their appeal, and I could see where they were going with it. It feels like a countrified R.E.M. in places, but instead of a lot of introspective Michael Stipe sadness, Uncle Tupelo explode outward in bootless cries to heaven and a whole lot of alcohol consumption. That said, what they do, they do very well, and there is no denying the pathos in the delivery.
The production and approach feel raw and basic, and that’s definitely both deliberate and well crafted. Also, it is worth noting that what Uncle Tupelo was doing back in 1991 was relatively new. Their percussive-heavy approach to mixing country and rock became a blueprint for many an indie band to emulate for many decades after. For this alone, they deserve credit.
Best tracks: Looking For A Way Out, Fall Down Easy, Still Be Around, Watch Me Fall
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