The closest touchstones with Velvet Hammer have to be American Music Club's Everclear and Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, two other records that bleed with despair and grim reality. New drummer Dana Marshall adds a creative instrumental spark, and it seems to have re-fueled his bandmates' creative juices. Though still sounding ragged and a little out of place in the studio, Steve Albini's raw engineering style is tailor-made for the band, especially for this stark material. Marcy Mays is a mediator between mother and child on "Your Mother Wants to Know": "She wants you to like her so try to forget it/ And she's sorry for all the years and what happened to you when you were a kid." In "Take a Swing," she confronts an angered lover: "If you get me started, there's no telling what I'll do." She's stuck in an un-trusting rut in "Prize": "I get flowers/ I get suspicious, too." Throughout Velvet Hammer, the protagonist is at the end of her rope, struggling to find peace of mind amidst inner and outer turmoil. Whether the songs of fractured relationships within are of romantic or familial nature, they sting with equally biting resonance. It's soaked in tears and alcohol, punctuated with bruises and frostbitten fingers. Velvet Hammer is one of the saddest, most heartbreaking records you will ever hear. Given that this is their last album comprised entirely of original material, we can happily conclude that Scrawl bowed out with heads held high, at the peak of their powers.Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs. She does wounded, defiant, and steely better than almost anybody. Dana Marshall's drumming is still very good, and Marcy Mays' voice is still a weapon a lot of bands should be jealous of. There's a few more driving rockers on this one - "Hunting Me Down", "The Garden Path", "Louis L'Amour", "He Cleaned Up" - which give the album a personality distinct from any other Scrawl record I'm familiar with. Both versions of "Story Musgrave" are excellent, the opening 'He would look down at laugh/At the thought of a crash' immediately arresting, the pay-off of 'I'm smart enough to know you have no use for me/Sure enough to know you will one day' heartbreaking. Taken alone it's a very good song, but it derails the album by appearing at track 4 here. And "From Deep Inside Her" doesn't seem to fit in to the album, being a little too happy for its own good. "What Did We Give Away?" is a weak closer, thrown into sharp relief by the fact that it's preceeded by the gorgeous "Story Musgrave (At The Piano)", a song fit to close any album. "He Cleaned Up"'s constant, furious repetition of 'He cleaned up/She took him back/He ***ed up/She kicked him out' is clearly meant to convey a relationship that just goes round in circles, but the song's drive toward repeating these lines as fast as possible becomes annoying. Yet, what sets this apart is the presence of 3 songs that let the side down, keeping this at arm's length from challenging Velvet Hammer. "The Garden Path" is similarly excellent, and when the lovely chorus of "I'm Not Stuck" hits, it seems that this may even top their previous masterpiece. "Good Under Pressure" kicks things off by getting straight into the heart of matters - it's a sloppy rock song about domestic abuse, just like "Take A Swing", the highlight of Velvet Hammer. The songs, though? Largely, it's business as usual. The jangling chords that appeared so often on Velvet Hammer have taken a back-seat, replaced by newly foregrounded doomy arpeggios that, as always, have a slight hint of Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth about them. The differences come from the label - this has better production and a tighter sound, though Steve Albini is still responsible for the 'recording'. Travel On, Rider was the band's major label debut on Elektra/Asylum (back when Asylum was still a folk-rock label), following the grand statement of one of the finest albums of the 90s, 1993's Velvet Hammer. Still, what commercial potential did they ever think Scrawl would have? Clearly, by 1996, riot grrl had taken its full effect, so the signing was, in truth, probably just a knee-jerk reaction by Elektra - Scrawl were, after all, a predominantly female band with a defiantly female outlook and several female fans, and they'd been a part of riot grrl events for years, having earned the adoration of subcultural fanzines. Luckily, Scrawl navigated the pitfalls and made a strong follow-up to Velvet Hammer.Īfter nearly a decade of wounded, naked, painfully confessional lyrics and a decidedly lo-fi, post-punk musical outlook, Scrawl must have been wondering how the hell they ever wound up on a major label. Review Summary: The major-label debut is often the killer for indie bands.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |