A lot of people mentioning Yerself is Steam by Mercury Rev. Never realised they had an earlier album that is so well regarded. I'll check it out. Hope it's not going to scare the shit out of a Deserters Songs era Rev fan...
A lot of people mentioning Yerself is Steam by Mercury Rev. Never realised they had an earlier album that is so well regarded. I'll check it out. Hope it's not going to scare the shit out of a Deserters Songs era Rev fan...
Deserters Songs is a giant step from Yerself is Steam
Deserters Songs is a giant step from Yerself is Steam
Yeah just listened. Like a different band really. Pretty intense, but not in an angry way. The song I really liked on this listen was the first one but found the rest interesting too. Maybe I could get into it but I'm not sure yet.
Yeah just listened. Like a different band really. Pretty intense, but not in an angry way. The song I really liked on this listen was the first one but found the rest interesting too. Maybe I could get into it but I'm not sure yet.
Yerself is Steam. I like Deserter's Songs a lot and quite like See you on the other side too. I'd never heard either of their first two albums before now though.
First on the band which to me has an absolutely unique position in rock music because of the very distinctive voice of Guy Kyser. The music is best described as desert rock with both country and psychedelic influences and they issued 5 albums from 1985 to 1991 which means that The Ruby Sea was their final one and also the album I discovered them first and still my favorite of them.
I never saw them live but they have finished off their career with a double live album which was taken from a live concert in Ghent, my town of birth: One That Got Away (1992) and Allmusic.com gives as the reason “the band enjoyed European success more than American, a result of their dark and occasionally campy sound”.
Tracks like Bartenders Rag are very much country but still have a very neat twist to them. But many other songs go further than that and I’ll limit myself to my description of the three best pieces on the album:
- The album starts in a great way by the title track which sounds very threatening/haunting the whole song (a bit in the sense of some of the early Nick Cave songs) and doesn't seem to give way to any kind of closure.
- The third track (Puppet Dog) is which is a bit of a slowburner: it starts off very country-ish and then builds up to a great guitar part.
- And then there’s the highlight Hunter’s Moon which is also building up to a climax with some great drumming and is even better on the aforementioned live album.
Overall this album has a very atmospheric feeling to it which is only enhanced by the great singing and the beautiful guitars.
In listening to this album again I revisited some scores of individual tracks which caused this album to move up from the 25th to the 18th rank in my personal top chart of 1991.
For everybody who wants to listen to this album comments are welcome because to me it is very much underrated: 464th album of the year and rank 28432 overall on BEA: only Johnnyo has this album as one of his favorites.
Great review of a great album. My best friend in med school LOVED Thin White Rope & turned me onto them back on the early 2000s. Whenever I hear them I'm always like "I need to listen to MORE Thin White Rope!" But they're obscure enough that they too often fall off my radar so THANKS! 😁
God I loved 1991, if I could go back in time and relive a year of my life this is the one I’d choose. Firstly it was the year when I started going to loads of gigs, I also moved into a house with friends and I was out socialising most nights of the week and was meeting loads of exciting new people all the time.
The first notable gig of the year for me was seeing Ride (supported by Slowdive) on the Today Forever Tour in Cardiff. June was a brilliant month going to loads of gigs which included a weekender with a couple of mates down in Cornwall seeing the Charlatans in St Austell. We seemed to always be making the short hop down the A40 in my battered Vauxhall Nova visiting the Oxford Venue or Jericho Tavern seeing Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Moose, Revolver, Cranes, Heavenly, The Family Cat, Swervedriver and The Orchids. Later that month we went to the (now legendary in Shoegaze circles) Slough Music Festival which Ride headlined with support from Curve, Slowdive and Revolver + others. Shonen Knife was a good night as were Teenage Fanclub and having missed the Smiths I finally got to see Morrissey on the Kill Uncle Tour in Gloucester.
As the year moved on I had that incredible moment when you know you’ve just heard something so amazing it was going to change everything. Yep we’re talking Smells Like Teen Spirit...followed by my first glimpse of the band trashing said hit on Top of the pops. One final incredible show to close a perfect year was an evening spent on a boat named the Thekla in Bristol attending the Sarah Records Christmas Party.
Anyhow I’m rambling so onto the releases of 1991...the important ones were:
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Nevermind - Nirvana
Screamadelica - Primal Scream
Out Of Time - R.E.M.
Plus all these were really great listens:
Heavenly vs Satan - Heavenly
Whirlpool - Chapterhouse
Just For A Day - Slowdive
Raise - Swervedriver
Seamonsters - The Wedding Present
Bandwagonesque - Teenage Fanclub
Sonny & Sam - Moose
Coastal - The Field Mice
For Keeps - The Field Mice
Trompe Le Monde - Pixies
Shiftwork - The Fall
The Real Ramona - Throwing Muses
Unholy Soul - The Orchids
Yourself Is Steam - Mercury Rev
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - Mudhoney
Dreamy - Beat Happening
Spiderland - Slint
Laurel - Brighter
Snog - The Popguns
Pretty On The Inside - Hole
Foxbase Alpha - Saint Etienne
III - Sebadoh
Let down of the year for me was Dinosaur Jr’s Green Mind but even that opens with one of my favourite ever songs in The Wagon. Out of interest a few bands that were pretty big in The UK back then but get very little recognition now were Carter USM, The Wonderstuff, Pop Will Eat Itself And Neds Atomic Dustbin...They we’re all far more popular than say Slowdive for instance.
Happy New Year everyone and I really hope 2018 is to someone what 1991 was for me.
God I loved 1991, if I could go back in time and relive a year of my life this is the one I’d choose. Firstly it was the year when I started going to loads of gigs, I also moved into a house with friends and I was out socialising most nights of the week and was meeting loads of exciting new people all the time.
The first notable gig of the year for me was seeing Ride (supported by Slowdive) on the Today Forever Tour in Cardiff. June was a brilliant month going to loads of gigs which included a weekender with a couple of mates down in Cornwall seeing the Charlatans in St Austell. We seemed to always be making the short hop down the A40 in my battered Vauxhall Nova visiting the Oxford Venue or Jericho Tavern seeing Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Moose, Revolver, Cranes, Heavenly, The Family Cat, Swervedriver and The Orchids. Later that month we went to the (now legendary in Shoegaze circles) Slough Music Festival which Ride headlined with support from Curve, Slowdive and Revolver + others. Shonen Knife was a good night as were Teenage Fanclub and having missed the Smiths I finally got to see Morrissey on the Kill Uncle Tour in Gloucester.
As the year moved on I had that incredible moment when you know you’ve just heard something so amazing it was going to change everything. Yep we’re talking Smells Like Teen Spirit...followed by my first glimpse of the band trashing said hit on Top of the pops. One final incredible show to close a perfect year was an evening spent on a boat named the Thekla in Bristol attending the Sarah Records Christmas Party.
Anyhow I’m rambling so onto the releases of 1991...the important ones were:
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Nevermind - Nirvana
Screamadelica - Primal Scream
Out Of Time - R.E.M.
Plus all these were really great listens:
Heavenly vs Satan - Heavenly
Whirlpool - Chapterhouse
Just For A Day - Slowdive
Raise - Swervedriver
Seamonsters - The Wedding Present
Bandwagonesque - Teenage Fanclub
Sonny & Sam - Moose
Coastal - The Field Mice
For Keeps - The Field Mice
Trompe Le Monde - Pixies
Shiftwork - The Fall
The Real Ramona - Throwing Muses
Unholy Soul - The Orchids
Yourself Is Steam - Mercury Rev
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - Mudhoney
Dreamy - Beat Happening
Spiderland - Slint
Laurel - Brighter
Snog - The Popguns
Pretty On The Inside - Hole
Foxbase Alpha - Saint Etienne
III - Sebadoh
Let down of the year for me was Dinosaur Jr’s Green Mind but even that opens with one of my favourite ever songs in The Wagon. Out of interest a few bands that were pretty big in The UK back then but get very little recognition now were Carter USM, The Wonderstuff, Pop Will Eat Itself And Neds Atomic Dustbin...They we’re all far more popular than say Slowdive for instance.
Happy New Year everyone and I really hope 2018 is to someone what 1991 was for me.
Shonen Knife was a good night as were Teenage Fanclub
I saw Teenage Fanclub in 1991 as well (in Paris) for the Bandwagonesque tour (or was it the Thirteen tour a year later ?) Anyway, I found their own combination of jangle and fuzz was so pleasurable live!
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Repo
dihansse
