Sacred Cowpats: January 2019

Monday, January 28, 2019

Pearl Jam: The Last Great Big Rock Band

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2019/01/28/pearl-jam-the-last-great-big-rock-band/

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Yo La Tengo - New Wave Hot Dogs

Yo La Tengo's second album, released in 1987, sees them go more abrasive than the debut. As such, band workouts such as Clunk, House Fall Down and Let's Compromise are ok but sound like they were more enjoyable to record than for us to listen to. The album works better when they shift down a gear. Did I Tell You and Lewis have a slow, VU grind to them. Many of the songs are very brief, Lost In Bessemer takes this to an extreme, a 78 second instrumental. It's Alright borrows some of the melody and chords from the Rolling Stones' I'm Free.

A Shy Dog is the most recognisable Yo La Tengo sounding track, you can hear the band inventing their 90s sound, while penultimate track No Water is the most muted and probably strongest song here, with an Ira Kaplan guitar flourish or two. But in the main, the album is interesting to see where the band came from, but little more.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Soundgarden - Screaming Life

Soundgarden released their debut EP in late 1987, Screaming Life. It's noteworthy for having two strong heavy rockers on it. Opening track Hunted Down, has a low slung, menacing riff through it. Chris Cornell hadn't quite found his voice at this point, he sings this one in a more generic late 80s metal voice. It's not a particularly Soundgarden-y track, you could imagine it being performed by Alice In Chains. A lot of the rest of the EP is, while not terrible, not particularly noteworthy. Songs like Entering and Tears To Forget are kind of scream-y metal, while Little Joe tries to mix that metal with funk with predictably tedious results. The other real keeper here is Nothing To Say. Much slower than anything else here, it has a dead-slow-yet-heavy-as-fuck riff that powers through the song. Here Cornell pushes his singing register to its upper limit and the track is pretty effective.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

President Yo La Tengo

President Yo La Tengo is the band's third album, a short one released in 1989. It opens with the gnarly strums of Barnaby, Hardly Working and Drug Test. After surf-rock instrumental The Evil That Men Do, there are two shouty live recordings which have little to recommend themselves. What remains is the pleasant strum Alyda, featuring Georgia Hubley aah-ing sweetly in the background, and a reverent version of Bob Dylan's I Threw It All Away. One for the curious, nothing more.