Deerhoof- Breakup Song

Let's return to 2012. Obama re-elected, the world didn't end, and the much longed for new season of Arrested Development began filming. A year unlike any other aside from one crucial way: there was a new Deerhoof album. Breakup Song is the 11^th full length the band have released since their 1999 debut, and folows its predecessor, 2011's Deerhoof Vs. Evil. A short and frenetic record, it plays like the other side of the coin, staying in the same relative style over its 11 songs. It's almost as if Deerhoof have settled into the same prolific, creative groove they occupied the mid 00s, producing a string of guitar-based avant-garde noise/pop records that made them one of those “love it/hate it” bands that provoked arguments between hipster friends.

The huge difference with modern-Hoof is that they're are no longer just a guitar-based avant-garde noise/pop band. Over the last half decade, they've been adding in keyboards, samples, and other modern sounding electronic flourishes, sounding like something formed from a combination of the weirdest synth-pop band of all time and a noisy San Francisco psych-rock band. While there's certainly nothing on Deerhoof Vs. Evil and Breakup Song that is remotely as abrasive as their beloved mid 00s output, it's also true that it's easy to write them off as 'light' and 'pop leaning' without giving them their full due. If anything, one could view these two records as the band finally folding the styles of Friend Opportunity and the Green Cosmos EP into their post-The Runners Four style.

Part of me wishes Deerhoof would've taken a couple years off and combined the best bits of Deerhoof Vs. Evil and Breakup Songs into a modern sequel to The Runners Four. However, this would make for an exhausting listen. For all its variety wrung out of largely the same instrumentation, The Runners Four holds together perfectly and also works on a song-by-song basis. Breakup Songs by contrast, if blown out to twice its runtime, would be grating and tiring by the time you got to the last third. There's simply too much packed into songs this short. So what would they sound like if Deerhoof had slowed things down and, in general, stop trying so hard? Probably a more electronic sounding version The Runners Four.

Now that Deerhoof are free to use whatever instruments and musical styles they want to, it's kind of odd how they've lost some of their imagination and uniqueness. Taken in 20 or 30 second increments, the songs of Breakup Song might seem very different from each other; in actual listening conditions, however, they all kind of run together. Every song seemingly has to whip through three or four tricks of sound or structure before the band are satisfied. When you do this over and over, it stops being interesting and starts making everything sound the same.

If they didn't make their songs unpredictable and frenetic all the time, if they took a few breaths and let song arrangements develop organically, they might make something truly great again. Deerhoof keep putting out albums that don't sound like anyone else and I should love them for it. Instead, I keep thinking “well, maybe next time they'll get all of it right.” Offend Maggie and onward, every release is somehow unsatisfying and unmemorable but never bad enough to merit scorn.

Really, the main problem with the last few Deerhoof records is that they don't stick with me in the same way that their earlier works did. They're weird, but they're only weird in a cloying, self-aware way, like a death metal cover of a J-pop song, or Low playing a set of Misfits covers for a Halloween show. Back in the day you'd stumble on Deerhoof and you couldn't tell if they were playing their instruments very badly or extremely well; eventually you realized you didn't care either way. Now their music gives off the impression that everything is so easy to them that they're paradoxically trying too hard to compensate for it. There is still that same visceral rush and whimsical, devil-may-care abandon to the music they're producing these days, making these albums undeniably Deerhoof in spite of how different they sound compared to Apple O'...but I'm perpetually left wishing they would stop trying to push ahead and take a breather.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 11 (For Realz)

Well, it finally worked. Hope it was worth all the trouble! I have just had one of the worst 24 hour periods of my life, as if the universe wants to make surviving til my vacation as difficult and painful as possible. Such is life.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 5

Ya'll know the drill. Word up. (Sorry, been listening to a lot of Beastie Boys lately)

Deerhoof- Deerhoof Vs. Evil

Admission of guilt time: in retrospect, I overrated Deerhoof's last album, Offend Maggie. Of all of their post 2003 records, it's the one that stuck with me the least, and I could never pinpoint what causes this. Perhaps if I listened to it in the shuffled-around-vinyl-tracklisting format? Hmm, nope. It finally took their new release, Deerhoof Vs. Evil, to help me understand my lack of love for their last one: Offend Maggie is good but unsatisfying; solid but underwhelming. I'm sorry to say that similar problems arise with Vs. Evil, though to a greater extent and in slightly different ways.

The first thing that'll strike you about Vs. Evil is how varied and lush it sounds. Moreso than even the de-facto double album, The Runners Four, this is Deerhoof at their most searching and expansive. They've brought back a good deal of the keyboard heavy electro-experiments of the Green Cosmos EP as well as the art-damaged pop of Friend Opportunity and cut all of this with the hard edged riffs, stop on a dime time spastic song structures, and sing-song-vocals-married-to-noise-pop of their older material. Which means a genuinely lovely acoustic track like 'No One Asked To Dance' juts up against the flashy krautrock-meets-Led Zeppelin-meets-prog-rock-keyboards instrumental 'Let's Dance The Jet', which in turn is succeeded by 'Super Duper Rescue Heads!', one of the band's best attempts at writing a mangled pop song. Meanwhile, much credit for the lushness must go to the band for producing Vs. Evilthemselves, since having two or so years to futz with layers of sound let them produce their most detailed record ever. It took my a close listen on headphones to begin to enjoy this one, so if you're still struggling to “get” this one, I recommend that approach.

With credit for lushness must also come the main blame for the shortcomings of Deerhoof Vs. Evil. There's an album title by the Doobie Brothers called “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits” and this is something that comes up in my head while listening to Vs Evil. Understand that Deerhoof were never ones to sit down and write a straight up pop song; they always throw in some unexpected noise or turn-on-a-dime song structures to throw you off, while the lyrics are simplistic sing along fodder (a la 'Panda Panda Panda') or poetic/surreal pidgin English (a la 'Siriustar'). On Vs. Evil, these vices-now-habits are starting to get in the way of their music because there is just as often a feeling of “been there, done that” to this album as there is a sense of newness and discovery. There are certain rhythmic, textural, and melodic tropes that are lifted almost wholesale from past Deerhoof releases. The cadence and general feel of 'Hey I Can' is heavily reminiscent of 'Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back', made even worse by the grating repetition of single words as lyrics. Furthermore, the last minute or so of 'Behold A Marvel In The Darkness' is what you'd make if someone tasked you with recording a Deerhoof parody, while 'The Merry Barracks' is practically a Cliff's Notes to their entire discography.

Due to the unfortunate marriage of new ideas and re-packaged old ones, Deerhoof Vs. Evil suffers from its variety instead of being boosted by it. To say the album lacks a sense of flow and cohesion still feels inadequate. Years ago, I remember reading an interview with drummer Greg Saunier about how the band always argued and sweated over the tracklisting of their albums. I don't mean to be insulting though I'm going to say it: perhaps they shouldn't if this is the best they can do. The first and last songs feel like they're appropriately placed while everything in between comes off like a particularly good b-side/outtakes collection instead of a proper studio album with careful pacing and flow.

Deerhoof Vs. Evil is going to be one of those albums that divides its audience. Much of your enjoyment or lack thereof will depend on your familiarity with their music, and how far you're willing to indulge their vices-now-habits in pursuit of appreciating the new ideas on this record. I have a feeling I'm going to be revisiting this album from time to time and completely changing my opinion of it, though I don't see that as a bad thing. True, as with Offend Maggie I am left feeling oddly underwhelmed and unsatisfied with this one. But it's been some time since a record confounded me and I was compelled to stick with it past writing a review. Vs. Evil is worth a listen for that reason alone even though I have strong reservations about it.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

My Favorite Albums Of The 00s (Part 2) & (Part 3)

Sorry for the lateness. As you'll see in the third video, I've been having all sorts of issues with my computer and Internet lately. Anyway, they're finally done. Should have a written review up tomorrow. And yes, from now on the videos won't be lists.

Cryptacize- Mythomania

Sometime in 2007, there started to be a movement among some videogame critics to progress beyond the usual Consumer Reports-style reviews that ticked off the list of Music/Visuals/Controls/Gameplay. Rather, they began to get more overtly subjective and personal in the way that music critics did in the mid-to-late 60s. As a medium matures, its parallel journalism/criticism does, too. And so it came to be that certain phrases or terms were signalled out as useless for consumers; lazy shorthand for things that better writers would explain more explicitly. One of these phrases was "compelling gameplay." This is either a backhanded compliment or a straightforward one and tells the reader nothing. Yet I have to admit that sometimes, even as seasoned and good as my writing skills can be, I sometimes find it impossible to precisely say why I like something, and in the case of music, why I can't stop listening to it.

Still with me?? Good.

Mythomania is compelling. Sorry, but that's the only way I explain why I keep listening to it and yet don't think it's a great album. But I'll go into more detail just for the sake of argument.

I saw Cryptacize open for Sufjan Stevens earlier this Fall, and while at the time I (and seemingly the rest of the crowd) thought they were ok but not outstanding, something about their music stuck with me. There was something, dare I say, compelling about it. As Cryptacize count Chris Cohen as a member, a man who used to be in Deerhoof, and have a female singer with a cute-ish voice, they kind of remind me of what a more "normal" (for lack of a better term) version of Deerhoof might've sounded like. It's not entirely fair to compare the two bands since they're trying for different things, so I'll just let it drop there.

Anyway, Cryptacize play a brand of slightly playful indie rock. Rather than the jagged chords and unpredictable noise-pop of his days in Deerhoof, here Cohen employs a more grooving 60s style that some have likened to surf music. 'Blue Tears' opens with a borderline ska-like part from him, while 'My Thomania' brings to mind 60s girl groups with its wide eyed vocals and strutting, distorted guitar lines. Meanwhile, 'One Block Wonders' has quickly become one of my most played songs lately. The band opened their set with it at the show I saw, and the way it slowly builds from a simple drum line just turns some kind of key in some kind of lock in my brain.

However, when Cryptacize let Cohen sing or slow things down too much, everything falls apart. 'What You Can't See Is' is the sort of song where you feel embarrassed for the band, with its simplistic sentiments about identity and Cohen's deadpan delivery. Moreover, 'Galvanize' sounds like Beach House on a bad day, lacking any of the great production or rich melodies of that band. All of this just hammers home the uneven quality of Mythomania. There's six pretty good songs here and five weak ones, and while I'm too lazy to attempt my own order, I always get the feeling that the album is poorly paced.

And yet, there is something compelling about Mythomania. I noted in another review that I don't think Clinic's Walking With Thee is a particularly great album yet I used to listen to it a lot and still sometimes do. Well, this's a similar situation. Mythomania is not great but it's got a half dozen good songs and I still keep listening to it every couple days. Call it a compulsion.

The Best Albums of 2008 Part 1

16) Beck - Modern Guilt
While he hasn't been releasing flat out bad music, Beck's cache has been muddled in recent years by a series of merely good albums with few surprises. Though it wasn't on the same level of the return of Portishead, Modern Guilt was one of my main surprises of 2008. The album sounds fresh and new, borrowing from modern day hip hop and 60s pop/rock and producing a concise, polished album of great songs.

15) and 14) Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster.../We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
While I haven't gotten around to reviewing these yet, Los Campesinos have, with the two albums they released this year, proven themselves to be as consistent and catchy as indie pop bands twice their age. The band deftly walk the indie rock line between sincerity and irony: song titles like '...And We Roll Our Eyes In Unison' may read more like titles of bad MySpace poetry but in actuality are damn good songs crammed with ideas and hooks. Fans of Belle & Sebastian and Architecture In Helsinki need apply.

13) The Dodos - Visiter
You initial point of reference for this album will probably be Animal Collective circa Sung Tongs, but The Dodos are much less psychedelic and drone-y and much more energetic and buoyant. The songs match intricate acoustic guitar to spastic, flailing percussion that recalls all sorts of exotic African/non-Western influences. All of this is more impressive because The Dodos are only a duo yet produce full bodied music ripe with dense production.

12) Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel
While Deerhunter gave their noise/pop a restraint and polish with their album from 2008, Bradford Cox explored the electronic, ambient, and dream-pop headspaces with his 'solo' work under the Atlas Sound moniker. Let The Blind... makes for a hell of a headphones album, all glistening synthesizers, looped guitars, and longing, pained vocals. While not as immediately impressive as most of the albums on my list from this year, this one has been a return pleasure for me since its release very early in 2008.

11) Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
Deerhoof get better with time just as much as they stay good. Offend Maggie wisely adds a second guitarist to the line-up after an album with only one, bringing the band back to their 'classic' sound circa Milk Man and Runner's Four while still adding new wrinkles and twists to their now established sound. I suspect this new line-up have something even better ahead of them, but Offend Maggie is a damn good new beginning.

10) No Age - Nouns
Bands like No Age are the reason I haven't given up on music or hung myself. What I mean is, if you had asked me who No Age were at the start of 2008 I wouldn't have had a clue. Yet here I am, a few days before 2009 begins, and a band I had never heard of is on my list of best albums of 2008. This is why I love music: that endless discovery of new, great bands. That rush of new-ness coupled with excellence. Nouns is such a succinct, effortless slab of noise-pop that it's easy to underrate it in the grand scheme of things. My Bloody Valentine may never release another album or if they do it might be crap, but that's OK. Bands like No Age ensure that noise-pop will always have a future. And, err, a present.

9) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
It's odd to revisit this music in the middle of winter because it's so quintessentially made for the warmer months, when you hear about breezes instead of wind chill factors and at the very worst you might have to wear jeans instead of shorts. Nevermind that this was one of the most hyped up and talked about releases of the first part of 2008. Nevermind all the comparisons to Afro-pop and Paul Simon's Graceland. Mind, though, how infectious and addictive this album is.

Album of the Week: Deerhoof- Offend Maggie

Deerhoof are an endlessly fascinating band assuming you're a fully baptised member of the tribe who enjoy their music. They're the sort of group who elicit extreme reactions from listeners: you either love them or hate their guts and the guts of the people who listen to them. I don't think of Deerhoof as an extremely experimental band but I have a very skewed perspective. I think it's easy for people like me to forget that bands like the Fiery Furnaces and Animal Collective sound like absolute, intolerable, and pretentious crap to most people. At any rate, if you've never liked Deerhoof before, Offend Maggie will do nothing to change your mind, so you may as well just click away from this review right now and I'll count to five before continuing.

....five. OK, the haters are gone.

Offend Maggie is a mighty fine Deerhoof album. I was more than pleased to hear that the band had added another guitarist to their fold while recording the album because, in my opinion, the band functions best with two guitarists. Deerhoof's sound started to congeal into something interesting with Reveille in 2002. But it was with their next two albums, Apple O' and Milk Man, in 2003 and 2004, recorded after Chris Cohen joined, that they really started to record some great stuff. I still hold The Runners Four as their high point, being a fascinating and sprawling double album and all, but moreso I think it was because they sounded like a band. When Cohen left, their next album, Friend Opportunity, became a lean collection of experimental pop that simultaneously expanded both the band's pop and experimental sides. It's an odd album by any standard, with almost a third of its length given over to the final track, which was an 11 minute epic. Though I like Friend Opportunity, it sounded like a studio album made with little regard for live performances. Watching the now-threesome version of Deerhoof perform shortly after its release, they felt a bit limited. They did a good job of pulling off some of the older material even with only one guitarist, but Friend Opportunity was a bit too ambitious for its own good. 'Kidz Are So Small' doesn't quite translate well to the stage when the same guy playing the odd samples and keyboards has to play the guitar parts, too.

Offend Maggie is a return to the classic two guitarist Deerhoof sound and I welcome it with open arms. The more time that goes on, the more I think of The Runners Four as a masterpiece, so it's good to see the band...well, not returning to that sound, but hearkening back to it. At the same time, while Offend Maggie isn't as good as The Runners Four, it is a musical feast for fans of the band. The emphasis on this album is definitely on the instruments, from the clashing-and-interlocking guitars, bouncing Paul McCartney-esque bass lines, and the ultimate secret weapon of the band, the controlled chaos of Greg Saunier's drums. Deerhoof does their 'spastic prog rock, stop on a dime' stuff here better than ever. However, the downside of all this is that the vocals and lyrics are buried. I'm a fan of Satomi's voice beyond the surface "hey, listen to that weird Japanese chick sing random stuff!!" enjoyment of hipster irony-nauts, so it's a bit sad that I can't really tell what she's singing most of the time. Meanwhile, Saunier continues to deliver his one or two vocal turns per album with 'Family Of Others'; much like his drumming, his voice is a secret weapon for the band, with his child-like innocence and Brian Wilson-esque register.

When the initial excitement of a new Deerhoof album wears off, the inevitable conclusion is reached: it's just another Deerhoof album. You can't fault a band for sounding like themselves, but Offend Maggie is, in the end, Deerhoof doing Deerhoof. This album features some incredible songs but it would be hard to argue that there's anything entirely new about it. Again, this is not a bad thing, but Offend Maggie features some now-standard Deerhoof tropes from albums past, with the annoying/unlistenable song ('This Is God Speaking'), the repetitive-but-addictive song ('Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back'), the epic album closer ('Jagged Fruit'), and the awesome song that doesn't get the praise it deserves ('Buck and Judy'). While Offend Maggie does offer some new tidbits (the acoustic guitar intro to the title track, the sly use of pianos/keyboards here or there) this isn't really an album about change. This is a 'consolidate lessons you've learned' kind of release, putting the emphasis on band dynamics, interplay, and "let's do what we do best" songwriting. This makes for an easy, compulsive listen. Kinda like Wilco's Sky Blue Sky or Radiohead's In Rainbows in that regard, two albums that didn't do anything new but were nevertheless really damn good.

So where does this leave us?? Well, if you're a fan of Deerhoof--which I assume you are if you made it this far into this review--you should rush out immediately and buy this album. It's another great album from a band who've been on a winning streak for five years. Those of you non-fans who've made it this far into my review, well, you won't like Offend Maggie and are best served by giving Friend Opportunity or The Runners Four a try, albums that are a bit more welcoming to newcomers but still have all the elements of Deerhoof that will either excite or sicken you.

Video: Deerhoof- The Perfect Me

Assuming you didn't like their music, it would be really easy to hate Deerhoof. Especially based on playful videos like this, in which the band actually play over a pre-recorded version of the song 'The Perfect Me.' And Satomi messes with a silly light toy, a stuffed animal, and a Bob Dylan-esque "hold up the lyrics to the song" move. And they begin the video by talking over each other.

Thankfully, then, I love Deerhoof and I think this video is cute. I've never gotten the feeling that Satomi's "kawaiiii I'm a cute little Japanese woman who does funny poses and dances crazy!!" shtick is actually a shtick. Rather, I think it's just how she is, in the same way that Thom Yorke's seizure dancing isn't an act.

Album of the Week: My Bloody Valentine- Isn't Anything

Don't worry. I'm not going to try to be an iconoclast and argue that Isn't Anything is better than Loveless. After all, it wouldn't be fair; Loveless is an iconic, landmark release that still sounds like nothing else in music history. It was a bolt from the blue. By any standard, Isn't Anything is a more 'normal' album: its got discernible lyrics, the guitars aren't constantly built up to huge swallowing walls of beautiful noise, and the songs themselves are more traditionally structured.

However, even if Loveless never existed, Isn't Anything would still be one of the crowning achievements of the shoegazer genre. In fact, listening to other bands of this era, you get the impression that they took inspiration primarily from this album. Nobody quite managed to make the jump to a Loveless level, or perhaps knew better than to try. Isn't Anything is more safely grounded in this reality, with an inspiration of its own to work from: The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy. I have to confess that I only very recently listened to that album, but its influence is shot through this album, from the druggy atmospheres and careful mix of noise/pop to the Velvet Underground-esque mystique and seeming danger of the whole project. What My Bloody Valentine did was to make this aesthetic a little more warm and inviting. Listening to Psychocandy is like being strung out on heroin in a crappy apartment after your girlfriend has decided to leave you for good; listening to Isn't Anything is like being stoned and sleepy while snuggling with a girlfriend who you had a serious fight with the night before.

It took Deerhoof to make me realize how much I like Isn't Anything. In 2006, the band released a free MP3-only EP through their website which contained live tracks and 3 covers. One of those was 'Lose My Breath' from Isn't Anything, and in listening to the EP over and over, it finally hit me what great songs this band has. Even the huge reverb monster 'All I Need', with its cavernous guitars, is a fantastic experience. However, Isn't Anything more often adheres to a noise/pop blueprint, with songs like 'Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)', 'You Never Should', 'Nothing Much To Lose', and the aforementioned 'Lose My Breath' all being, underneath all the sonic murk and thrashings, classic pop/rock songs waiting to be uncovered. There is also more of a Dinosaur Jr.-esque rock vibe going on in some songs, like the heady rush of 'When You Wake (You're Still In A Dream)' and 'Feed Me With Your Kiss.'

I love Isn't Anything. I consider it a 5 star album. But--and this is a very big but, indeed--it's no Loveless. Sometimes it's possible to listen to this album and come away with the impression that it's pretty good on its own merits, but it was still a warm-up for Loveless. And though Isn't Anything would prove more influential in the short term, Loveless would be moreso in the long run. Bands like Deerhunter and M83 have taken ideas from Loveless into very different directions, while others--such as Trey Anastasio of Phish and Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices--claim to be inspired by the album in less direct ways. In the end, though, Isn't Anything is worthy of consideration and appreciation on its own. Try to listen to it without the burden of Loveless and you'll find a lot to love.

Album of the Week: The Unicorns- Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?

This may seem needlessly myopic, but for me, the musical heart of this decade didn't make itself clear until 2003 and 2004. While Radiohead's Kid A released in late 2000 signaled that artists could take major risks without losing their audience or the love of critics, it didn't end up being quite the revolution that, say, Nirvana's Nevermind was for the 90s. Rather, consider 2003 and 2004 as the time when indie rock made itself known as a force to be reckoned with. These two years saw definitive, decade defining releases from big names like Arcade Fire (Funeral), Broken Social Scene (You Forgot It In People), Deerhoof (Milk Man), Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Fever To Tell), The Postal Service (Give Up), Death Cab For Cutie (Transatlanticism), Fiery Furnaces (Blueberry Boat), The New Pornographers (The Electric Version), Sufjan Stevens (Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State), TV On The Radio (Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes or the Young Liars EP), and, of course, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? by the Unicorns. A truly heady mix of bands, and I'm probably leaving a lot out.

The Unicorns have come to stand, at least in my mind, for the kind of overnight success and collapse of a band that can happen in the current music journalism world. The Unicorns came out of nowhere in 2003 with this, their only album, and it seemed that every publication--both online and off--was lavishing praise upon them. After touring for more than a year, the band, exhausted and (presumably) a bit sick of each other, posted on their website that the band was through, confirming this in early 2005. Since then, two members collaborated on an album under the name Islands though shortly after the release of their debut Return To The Sea one member had departed. Thankfully, other massively popular, out-of-left-field bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have weathered the initial storm better.

While the albums I mentioned above all, somehow, fit under the broad indie rock umbrella, I think that this album helped to define the specific indie rock template for this decade. First of all, it's from a Canadian band, and one of the big stories of the '00s has been the emergence and viability of Canadian bands. Secondly, the album makes use of perky, tight drumming, crunchy-or-very-clean guitars, spazzy retro keyboards, 60s style supporting bass that is mixed fairly low in the mix, and more immediate, affected vocals. I associate all of these elements, to various extents, with the current "indie rock standard" sound. I'm not saying that the Unicorns pioneered this sound, or that every band in indie rock today is influenced by them, but I notice a lot of these common elements, and this album came out early enough to cement it in my mind. Lastly, the album is a damn good slice of what, at barebones, could be called pop/rock, but yet sounds nothing like what we typically think of when we say pop/rock.

Other than the fact that Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? still stands up as a damn good indie pop/rock album, there's two more things that made it so irresistable to critics and fans. The songs are untraditional in the sense that they rarely conform to basic structures like chorus/verse/chorus. Quite often, they're linear, or quickly jump between sections like the Fiery Furnaces or, sometimes, Deerhoof. Take 'Sea Ghost', which starts with a pennywhistle, adds bouncy drums, crunchy guitars, and precocious, affected vocals as it goes. Over its 3:43 duration, it never once repeats anything. Then there's the studio bantery opening of 'Tuff Luff', giving way to a barely there dirge before violins and fluffy keyboards bring the song to the surface for fresh air. Things fall back to just a molasses slow bass line and sweet harmonies before, again, a full band sound comes in--then there's a quick drum break with a short rap--and the song draws to a close with a repeated refrain of "save us" with odd sound effects and resounding drums.

The other thing I think that people latch unto with this album is its self awareness and referentiality. The album opens with 'I Don't Wanna Die' and closes with 'Ready To Die.' In between, there's three songs in a row with the word "ghost" in the title, a few songs directly about the band ('Let's Get Known', 'I Was Born (A Unicorn)'), and, just maybe, a reference to future band Islands in 'Ready To Die.' Which is pretty meta, I suppose: it's a song about being ready to die, but it could also be about the death of the band and hints at the Islands project. But that's reaching a bit. The only other (non-live) album I can think of that's as aware of both itself as an album and the songs themselves is Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, which either gives that album another feather in its cap for being ahead of its time or just means that I'm the only one who pays attention to these sort of things.

I'm a little worried that as time goes on, this album will be forgotten or at least not given the attention it deserves. Typically when bands implode after one album, even if the members go on to record great things under other names, that first album is forgotten. While I like Return To The Sea a lot, and it could have easily come out as the second Unicorns album, there is just something joyous and fresh about Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? that was lost in the transition toward a more nuanced, mature sound. But that's a review for another day. For now, track down a copy of this album and enjoy.