This one kind of embarrases me a bit, as I didn't own it before but consider myself a fan of theirs. Having spent countless hours listening to
Blonder and Blonder and
Happy Birthday To Me (their second and third album) as well as their first compilation (the woefully out-of-print
Hamburger), I was excited to take this album for a spin!
What obviously stood out to me were tracks that most people would hear and think "yup, that's the single" ("Lucky Guy," "Big Mouth") but what I ultimately loved the most on this album were "Everywhere I Go" (which really should have been a single and/or video, as it is easily the catchiest-want-to-listen-to-on-repeat song on the album), "I Need You" (which shows why Kim was known for her screaming), and "All For Nothing" (because I love when things get taken down a notch, like "Just A Game" on
Blonder and Blonder). I was also surprised by the hardcore punk songs embedded into the track listing, as well as all of the male backing vocals (something absent on future releases, as the drummer was replaced after this album; while it does make for a "wonder what could have been" situation with future albums, the addition of Roy on drums cemented their lineup going forward).
This album caused me to pull out the vinyls for those two aforementioned albums and listen again. Kim was a really underrated singer. I think the growly nature of her voice causes people to overlook the fact that these albums were recorded long before autotune; her voice, as unwieldy as it sounds, is damn-near-always dead-on pitch, and (here comes the nerd in me) her screams (for the most part) are actually chord tones and not just random shouts (great examples: "Agony" and "Oh Nina" from
Blonder and Blonder).
The popular phrase is that people get a lifetime to make their first album and two years to make their second, thus meaning that the first effort is always the one to beat; this is absolutely an album in their discography that proves that statement untrue. All of the elements that make this band's songs great were there on the beginning, and it was a joy to go sequentially through their discography and see how they were improved and refined over time.
I feel very lucky that I was a part of this experiment, and happy that I can have this album alongside two already very loved favorites of this band (and hopefully other parts of their discography that have been OOP for a minute get the reissues they deserve).
Thank you,
@Yer Ol' Uncle D !
