Well they chose their name right. I’ll give them that. Sarah Records unleashes it very first LP in 1989 with The Orchids debut and it’s… nice. Precious. Like their namesake, they’re very fragile. Delicate. Needing just the right climate & environment in order to survive. Something that could easily wilt on contact with a stern gaze or a faulty heating lamp. They have the feel of early Belle & Sebastian - too fragile & sensitive for life.
“Indistinguishable…. Inoffensive… Comfortable….” These are the three adjectives Allmusic uses to describe Lyceum. And they hit the nail on the head. This is good, inoffensive Sarah Records jangle pop. If you needed to describe Sarah Records sound, and one of their compilations wasn’t handy, this would do nicely. But it doesn’t really stand out. The Orchids haven’t really developed their own distinctive flair just yet. At this point, they’re just… nice. And in the dating world and in music, that’s pretty much the kiss of death. The aural equivalent of kissing your sister. At least in this case, it’s very cute & endearing sister. Interestingly, they would borrow form the Madchester scene in a good way to cultivate something much far more interesting with their next album - Holy Orchid. At this point, however, they seem to be apologizing for their very existence. At least they’re well behaved.
It does contain one stunner - “Blue Light” - which sounds like the most impassioned heart-on-sleeve song that New Order never wrote. “If You Can’t Wait” is a also a keeper. Again, this is a good album. Just nothing super special yet. It pales in comparison to The Field Mice’s Snowball released in the same year.
Attention Bargain Shoppers: The original release of this album suffers mightily due to Sarah’s head scratching philosophy that singles should NOT be on the album. Say what? Using some “value-for-money” double-speak that was somehow swallowed by their adoring & thus gullible fan base. “Why make you pay twice for the singles that you had already bought?” said Sarah. Hogwash says me. They just wanted you to keep buying their singles AND their albums. Buy everything! Luckily this “philosophy” was later corrected in 2005 when Lyceum was re-released with the singles tacked onto the end. That’s where you’ll get the real bang for your buck. Definitely worth hunting down.
Sorry to come back on 1991 but I've listened to some more albums from that year:
1.
Ramp by Giant Sand
I know one of your projects is to listen to all those Giant Sand albums and this must be one of their weirder ones because they seem to blend a lot of genres in their sound which makes it much broader than just alt-country. I liked the album but somehow I have the impression that their albums are not overall good on all fronts/tracks.
2.
Fear Of God by The Bats
I liked this album so much that I also listened to their debut Daddy's Highway and their newest album from 2017 I completely missed (The Deep Set) and I liked them all. Sometimes the singing can be a bit Up-With-Peoply but I like the jangly sound and the use of other instruments like the violin. Those Kiwi bands of that time were good.
3.
Blow Up by The Smithereens
An album which contains Top of the Pops can't be bad and it isn't: this must be one of their better ones
4.
Flyin' The Flannel by fIREHOSE
Somehow I don't really like this band, I think a bit the same reason why Minutemen are not my favorite band either: I don't know why: somehow lacks some hint of a melody?
Sorry to come back on 1991 but I've listened to some more albums from that year:
1.
Ramp by Giant Sand
I know one of your projects is to listen to all those Giant Sand albums and this must be one of their weirder ones because they seem to blend a lot of genres in their sound which makes it much broader than just alt-country. I liked the album but somehow I have the impression that their albums are not overall good on all fronts/tracks.
Yeah. I loved this album so much that I decided I had to dig deeper into their discog. One of the highlights of my 1991 project. It's definitely one of their weirder ones when they got even more adventurous so I wanted to brush up on their earlier stuff in order to have a better slant on writing this baby up. She's a beauty! Top 20 material easily.
Last edited by Repo on 03/15/2018 23:20; edited 1 time in total
Deep House goes to Korea for some K-Pop lollipops then takes first class sipping champagne back to Queens for some NYC Hip Hop slices. Definitely a young talent to watch. Highly Recommended!
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